For those of us who have a direct line between our websites and our revenue, which is to say those of us that have ad-supported or subscription-supported properties, the emergence of the New Algernons is not quite the glorious opportunity that it is for our friends running the support and sales sites.
As a refresher, the business model for these revenue-making sites can be simplified as:
visitors x impressions = revenue or subscribers x rate = revenue
… meaning, in either case, that recruiting and retaining visitors is the name of the game. We do this by producing compelling content, making sure people can find it, and convincing them to keep coming back.
If you don’t invest in making your content palatable for the Algorithm, someone else will.
We rely on Search Engine Optimization to reward sites who play by the rules, we invest in tools and methods to drum up attention, and we expect that we’re operating in a community where merit and investment determine success, and where everyone stops at the stopsigns.
Except that’s starting to not be the case, isn’t it?
Here’s an uncomfortable truth about your text content on the Web: it’s being used by others to further their agendas. Content scraping represents a material percentage of major sites’ traffic today - and that scraped content isn’t just feeding other people’s sites and apps, it’s grist for the mill of a thousand adolescent Algernons. And a few full-grown ones.
Here’s another one: this scraping and re-use is very difficult to prevent, and it’s increasing.
Here’s another one: if you don’t invest in making your topics and your content palatable for the Algorithm, someone else will, and there is no good story for your organization that begins that way.
Google is already using your content to answer questions, and so are Anthropic and OpenAI and dozens of other Algernons. They’re taking your impressions away already. It’s happening now, at the same time the value of your ad impressions is on a long downward slope — not because of privacy regulations, but because those ads are going the way of magazine ads and we just don’t know it yet. Paid subscriptions are only growing for sites with whom you probably don’t want to compete1. My family finds out the news from social media and probably so does yours.
I know you don’t want this to be true. I know that you have no idea how to monetize a world of appropriated and reformulated content, because nobody does. I know that part of your mind is right now coming up with dozens of reasons why I’m full of ****, and you’re at least half right.
But your investors and your colleagues and your customers and your future cortisol levels all need you to face the basics of what I’m describing here. Because you know what you can do, if you do? You can lead.
OnlyFans generated about $5.5 Billion revenue in their prior fiscal year.