[Author’s Note: I rewrote the About section and have a new tagline because I’m refining The Medium's positioning to focus on how AI is changing the fundamental economics of audience engagement for both platforms and IP holders. I’d welcome your thoughts on how this aligns with the strategic challenges you're seeing.]
On Monday, I posted a simple, game theory-type framework for understanding AI tools and digital video platforms are collapsing financial, legal and technical barriers to entry:
In production, AI is 'flattening' content creation by expanding the creator base from a few skilled professionals to anyone with internet access
In distribution, any content creator can game YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and other algorithms to find new audiences.
The core argument was that "flattening" inevitably drives content creation toward open, democratized platforms with original content. So, we are most likely to see New IP emerge at an extraordinary scale as more internet users become both creators and consumers of content with AI tools.
That is the “red pill” outcome I outlined for PARQOR Platinum subscribers in last week’s monthly presentation—going down the rabbit hole of the consumer being both a creator and a consumer and understanding the new market reality created by that dynamic.
The “blue pill” outcome—where the smart TV becomes the entertainment hub of the household and offers a mix of passive (streaming, broadcast and cable TV) and interactive (streaming, gaming) content consumption—is also worth considering through a game theory lens for New and Old IP.
It helps to explain why YouTube is so dominant.
There are still 1.1 billion television households globally. That implies that broadcast, cable and free-to-air TV are not going anywhere, even if all are in secular decline. Nielsen’s The Gauge highlights this dynamic in the U.S. each month: Streaming (+14% year-over-year) has been taking an increasing share of time spent from broadcast (-10%) and cable (-14%). Also,“Other” (+1%)—which includes gaming—has held constant.
