Best: Digital media will bifurcate into global juggernauts and niche publications
Chris Best · 20VC: Substack Founder Chris Best on The Future of Public Journalism, Why The Economics Of Attention Have Been Flipped & Why Micropayments For Content Will Not Work · Jun 12, 2020 · at 11:22
Chris Best is the co-founder and CEO of Substack. He discusses how global internet markets eliminate room for mediocre, middle-tier publications.
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“No, I think that's exactly right. I mean, I think this is the thing you get when the internet creates kind of a global marketplace for things is you want to be the best in the world at something. And that either means being the best in the world by being really good and being the primary thing, you know, you're the New York Times of writing stuff. Or you want to be the best in the world at a very specific thing, and so you want to be the best in the world at being the local paper for this city, or covering this very specific niche, and I think that that's a powerful mode for creating great stuff, and it's not enough to be mediocre and try and make something that's good enough for sort of a medium number of people. You either have to make something that's so good for the masses that it's continues, it's like the best in the world, or that's very good for like a targeted audience.”
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