Bo Sacks distributed an article about the New York Times using AI summaries, which triggered the following thoughts. (Link at the end of this article.) Suppose I’m a New York Times subscriber who’s wondering why inflation rose after COVID. Here are four possible experiences. I type my query into Google search and get links, which…
What will publishing look like in the Age of AI? Let’s examine that. TikTok “gets you” fast. At least that’s what I’m told. I don’t use it. It’s not doing magic or reading your mind. It’s curating based on your actions. But curation always has a goal. TikTok’s goal is to capture your attention. It…
Thesis: We’re moving towards a publishing market where AI content monetized by ads is going to dominate. How will publishers survive? Short answer: many won’t. I know that this idea upsets a lot of people for a lot of reasons, but here’s why it’s going to happen. Value. Cheap Sells Publishers argue that their content…
One of the things I’ve learned as an amateur fiction writer is that there’s a type of character arc in the creative process that most people don’t know about. It’s a strange type of character development. When you start writing a story, you have an idea about your main character. She’s single, about 30. She’s…
Summary: AI-powered document summaries are becoming embedded in workplace tools, but many companies haven’t considered the copyright, confidentiality, and governance risks involved in allowing sensitive content to be processed by AI systems. Organizations need to evaluate how these tools handle data, clarify internal AI policies, and remain vigilant as software vendors quietly introduce new AI…
Summary: AI companies increasingly claim they can build “moral AI” by training systems on human values, but human morality is rooted in value-laden perception of the world and lived emotional experience, not just patterns of language or rules. Because AI lacks the embodied experience that gives moral concepts their meaning, its “morality” will always require…
Summary: AI licensing deals may look like easy money, but they follow a familiar pattern: platforms take content and end up owning the customer relationship. By training systems that answer questions directly, publishers risk accelerating their own replacement unless they prioritize owning the audience and protecting the content that drives their business. It’s Groundhog Day…
Summary: I re-recorded the presentation I gave at the 2026 Niche Media Conference on Registration, Subscription, and Membership. If you’d like to listen and see the slides, go to the bottom of this article. This article is based on that presentation. Most publishers today are wrestling with the same fundamental problem: search traffic is declining,…
To become an expert on membership, registration, and subscription, study these companies that got it right. They offered a clear value for registration, a relationship based on trust for a subscription, or a meaningful identity for membership. New York Times How The New York Times’ Digital Bundle Strategy Is Winning Subscribers A master class in…
Summary: “Digital-first” workflows often assume content is independent of format. It isn’t. The medium shapes the idea. Treating content too abstractly leads to weak results; effective publishing requires respecting the constraints and creative influence of each format. I’m afraid I misled the Chinese about publishing workflows. I’m not sure their economy will recover. A friend…
Summary: Search used to give publishers reach with very little friction, even if they didn’t own the audience. Today every channel involves a trade-off between reach, ownership, and user friction, and understanding that three-way balance can help you design a smarter publishing strategy. For years, publishers could rely on search engines to deliver reach with…
Summary: AI is not a mind that thinks like a human, but it’s also far more than a simple autocomplete engine predicting the next word. Its outputs come from layers of statistical processes, pattern recognition, and structured systems that make the results surprisingly sophisticated — even though the underlying mechanism is still just math. Social…
Summary: When I rewrote part of my own book by hand, the slower process forced me to focus on the core ideas and sharpen the argument. At a time when AI can generate text instantly, the secret to more compelling writing may simply be slowing down and picking up a pen. Why do we Americans…
You can make the fastest, most readable website with the perfect design, elegant search features, and your own custom GPT and it still won’t be more convenient than a generic AI chatbot — because your readers’ workflow has fundamentally changed. Here’s the old workflow. Search, click, scroll, skim, avoid ads, extract the answer from a…
Most people seem to have this vague idea that science advances when a new theory comes along that explains the facts better. The new theory is so compelling, or so we imagine, that people abandon the old orthodoxy and adopt the new one. Following the facts, and all that sciency stuff. According to Thomas Kuhn’s…