You want to build a new internet?
For the past 30 years, we’ve lived in a world where the vast majority of the internet was free.
At least, that’s how it felt. You could search anything, read the news, connect with friends, follow your interests, and never pay a dime. It was a fantastic deal. We got powerful tools, endless content, and instant access to the world, and all we had to give up was a little time and attention.
But even that ‘free’ model was built, as all markets are, on the exchange of value. It’s just that the value we were giving up was a lot more subtle. Maybe there's a better model.
The real engine behind nearly every major internet company — from Yahoo’s early web portal, to Google search, to the social media giants — was advertising. These platforms weren’t just built to inform you, entertain you, or connect you. They were designed to understand what makes you tick and to leverage that knowledge to keep you engaged long enough to sell your attention to someone else.
What started as a way to access better information slowly evolved into a system optimized not just for knowledge or connection, but for monetization.
Nobody 40 years ago was addicted to reading the newspaper. You read it to understand the world. You wanted to know what was happening in your town, in your country, in geopolitics. You wanted to be informed.
And we wanted to stay in touch. So we embraced the shift from simple phone calls to photo sharing, then to posting more and more about ourselves online. In return, we got better, faster ways to stay connected.
But the deal we got ourselves into was a lot more complex than we understood. What we got wasn’t just access, we were handed a tool that was really good at drawing our attention. Instead of dinner table conversations, we got kids staring at phones. Instead of a long-awaited visit with your dad, you got him scrolling Facebook while the grandkids played.
So it’s worth asking: was it really free?
Because if the last 30 years taught us anything, it’s that information has real value. It shapes how we think, how we relate, and how we live. And yet, we’ve willingly and happily given it away.
But here's the good news — and you know I like a silver lining.
Something significant is changing.
Search is being disrupted. And while some companies try to shove the old business model into this new medium, there are signs that consumers are willing to consider something different. Just look at the revenue growth some of these AI companies have shown. Consumers are willing to pay for the value they get from AI tools that summarize and contextualize the world’s information better than any banner ad-riddled results page ever could.
Maybe this is an opportunity for an even more drastic rethink of the old model.
Every day I see signs that the world is starting to wake up to the change that’s happening. Stories like this one give me hope. Creators and media outlets are starting to realize that they can’t just allow the value they provide to be scraped and monetized by someone else. I’m also hopeful that readers are realizing they’d rather support work they truly value than be manipulated by it.
So maybe the next era of the internet isn’t free — but it’s a lot more fair and honest.
What if we build a model based on an honest exchange of value? If I value what you create, I pay for it. No games. No bait-and-switch. No third party exploiting our relationship.
Just a clear, direct connection between creator and audience. Between people and the information they care about. That’s a different incentive structure entirely. That’s a world where, I hope, creators can focus purely on the quality of their work and the connection it fosters with their audience. Where creating ‘value’ isn’t just defined by how many clicks you can drive or how long you can keep someone scrolling. It’s defined by actually challenging your audience to think, better understand, or explore the topics that matter to them.
Maybe we’re finally ready for that kind of internet. That’s what I hope we can foster here.