Backing indie media is not like paying for Netflix

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Welcome to No Monopoly Media Week. Every day this week, I'm sending you a story about why we should read, back or become indie media. If you're a paid subscriber, you'll only get today's issue and then, the round up on Sunday. You can access all posts via the site like usual.

I'm doing this to raise awareness for the mission behind my work this year and to raise audience funding to keep going. If you get inspired by what I'm doing and want to be part of it, join my Summer Reader Raise. Become a lifetime backer of my work at $297. Or join us for the year at $99. Perks start at $20 :)

We are living in the most boring timeline for mainstream media.

MTV News was nuked. Vice Media has been gutted. Amazon just laid off the whole Wondery podcast network. Spotify won't let you finish a long audiobook. Netflix is churning out the same documentary over and over again. Paramount just merged with Skydance, a company owned by Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison's son David, and then promptly canceled Stephen Colbert's show in an act of censorship. Speaking of Larry Ellison, last we heard, Trump still wants him to buy TikTok for just the U.S. Oh joy! A little internet island just for us. What could go wrong?

Any semi-successful media entity with an audience is ripe for purchase, and then, predictably, they face layoffs or shutdowns as they get chewed down into the conglomerate that acquired them. In the past, it was acknowledged even by the wealthiest capitalists among us that you needed good art and good journalism to attract an audience and make a profit. That sentiment is long gone in the age of AI.

You must deliver content, yes. But does that content need to be good? Debatable.

Politico called our current moment "the post-journalism era" and The Guardian's David Smith wants to know if Hollywood is "in a death spiral?"

None of this sits right with me. I don't just want to consume media fed to me by a small set of monopoly media owners like Jeff Bezos, Marc Andreessen and Reed Hastings.

(In case you're wondering why I tossed Andreessen in here. It's because his firm is a majority investor in Substack and he's funding a new podcast network)

The media industry isn't just collapsing. What we consume as media is flattening too. News, movies, stories, comics, books, podcasts. You name it. It's increasingly being produced by a select few and, at this point, it is often a regurgitation of what already exists.

This is bad. It's bad because we're gonna miss out on a whole lot of stories we could be hearing, reading or watching. It's bad because it won't reflect the diversity of experiences we're having on this planet. It's bad because it's fucking boring.

So, what's the answer if you're not a billionaire who can control the media?

We have to financially back indie media. Maybe even...become indie media.