Patreon strikes back

PLUS: A new kind of AI slop hits YouTube.

Welcome! I’m Simon Owens and this is my media industry newsletter. If you’ve received it, then you either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you.

If you fit into the latter camp and want to subscribe, then you can click on this handy little button:

Let’s jump into it…

Nieman Lab: Top Substack writers depart for Patreon

It’s a bit ironic that some writers who left Substack for Patreon say they did so because Substack is becoming a “walled garden.” In reality, Patreon is far more restrictive — you can’t take your paid subscribers with you if you ever decide to leave the platform. Substack, by contrast, processes payments through your own Stripe account, which means you can easily migrate your subscribers to other platforms like Beehiiv or Ghost.

One major issue with Patreon is that all newsletters sent through the platform use the same generic sender address — bingo @ patreon.com. This is extremely problematic because if just a few Patreon newsletter writers abuse the system and get flagged as spam, it affects everyone. Once that shared address is blocked, every other Patreon writer’s emails are more likely to be filtered or rejected. It’s such a glaring red flag that I’d strongly advise against building any newsletter business on Patreon for this reason alone.

Podnews: Steven Bartlett’s company steven.com hits $425mn valuation after investment round

I know private company valuations are kind of meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but I still think it’s notable that what started out as a video podcast is now valued above $400 million. From the press release, it seems like Steven Bartlett is positioning his podcast as merely a launching pad for all sorts of products, so it’s clear this valuation isn’t based on traditional media business models like sponsorships.

ICYMI: How the Wonder Tools newsletter grew to 39,000 subscribers

SHuSH: The least glamorous, crucially important, and increasingly troubled part of book publishing

“Very few publishers are willing to take on distribution themselves—it’s tedious, complex, and a bigger investment. Almost everyone chooses to contract with an existing distributor. And if you’re unfortunate enough to sign on with a weak or failing one, it can be fatal.”

NYT: Jack Carr Knows His Way Around a Battlefield, and a Military Thriller

A former Navy SEAL has grown a massive fanbase for his novels, which are known for describing modern warfare in excruciatingly minute detail. A substantial portion of his readers are veterans themselves, and multiple books have been adapted into a TV series starring Chris Pratt.

(BTW, I used a gift link so you can access that article for free.)

I’m looking for successful media entrepreneurs to feature in my newsletter and podcast

I am consistently on the lookout for successful media entrepreneurs to interview for my podcast, whether it’s a solo creator or someone running an entire team. I want to feature people who are killing it with YouTube videos, podcasts, newsletters, or virtually any other type of digital content. I’m especially eager to talk to folks who have really interesting business models.

If this interests you, I created a special landing page for folks who want to pitch me.

Christophe: They stole my work. I tried to find them

A new kind of AI slop is proliferating on YouTube. Creators are noticing some of their most popular videos have been recreated on a shot-by-shot basis, with their faces and voices swapped out with AI avatars. It’s clear the people behind these channels believe they’re avoiding copyright infringement claims by providing just enough plausible deniability that the work is original.

Wired: Ed Zitron Gets Paid to Love AI. He Also Gets Paid to Hate AI

Ed Zitron is one of the tech industry’s most outspoken critics, known for his popular newsletter that frequently takes aim at AI companies and their founders. At the same time, he runs a PR agency whose clients are mostly tech firms. From the outside, it’s difficult to see how he reconciles those two seemingly contradictory roles.

If you get any value out of my newsletter or podcast…

…please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Subscribing gets you access to a huge and growing index of media case studies. Use the link below and get 20% off for your first year:

CJR: The Interview Assassin

The New Yorker journalist Isaac Chotiner specializes in lengthy Q&As and has become known for his contentious interviews where he confronts his subjects with their own inconsistencies and logical fallacies. Other journalists wonder why famous people agree to sit down with him given the high likelihood of embarrassment.

TPM: Patron-Supported Journalism Can’t Be the Future of News

I think this is a bit of a straw man argument. While I agree that subscription-funded newsletters won’t single handedly “save” the media industry, I do think they’re helping to cushion the blow as legacy media contracts. And while most creators won’t be able to generate full-time incomes from their own newsletters, the very biggest newsletters will reach a sufficient level of scale to where they can start hiring more full-time and part-time journalists. Even mid-sized creators now employ dozens of people.

What’s coming down the pipeline…

I’m now 3,286 words into writing a long profile of Dynamo, the media startup launched earlier this year by Nicholas Carlson, the former editor of Business Insider. I’m still aiming to publish this next week — hopefully Wednesday, though I do have a tendency to vastly underestimate the final word counts for all my longform pieces.

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