Today I write about how lightning has unleashed a new breed of media publications into the fiat world we find ourselves living in. This has been a part of my journey since my baptism earlier this year and my yearning to be in the light during the darkest times.

Did you get the memo? Old fiat media is dying. People like Kanye are getting canceled for freedom of speech. We have consolidation happening in the fiat world. But I am here to tell you that lightning-enabled media publications will be the last standing. Lightning this year has unleashed media publications from the old fiat world.

Fiat media is a rigged system; even the fiat podcast industry cannot figure this out.

In traditional fiat media, advertisers exchange money for advertising based on clicks and page views instead of real intrinsic value. It has become far too easy for media companies to manufacture page views, subscribers, and comscores, and we still need to discuss incentivized traffic. Something is entirely wrong, whether that includes intrusive ad companies looking for those high numbers or media companies succumbing to fake those numbers.

the price the company charges podcast networks for these ads can vary depending on whether they’re targeted to particular demographics or guaranteed to attract unique listeners. The starting rate for a 20-second ad is $27 per 1,000 website page views. To monetize such downloads, podcast networks can turn around and sell the resulting audience to brand advertisers, presumably at a nice markup

RSS is an open protocol and will always find a way, but if it is spammed to everyone by Spotify and Anchor. Are those genuine listeners and downloads? It may be why Facebook and Twitter previously offered RSS feeds but have removed support entirely. Even Google Reader was discontinued in 2013 for a particular reason most unbeknown to us. Did they realize the same thing I have, that RSS is just a web feed and will do what it does regardless of aggregators and syndication? What value is there in bots? Is fiat media telling advertisers that the bots control the price of an ad?

Sat value is the only accurate metric because the reader and listeners are in control.

Who will be the last media companies when all is said and done? It will be the media companies built on the lightning network. We are going through a transition where independent media companies are becoming entirely free from the old financial world. Right now, a primary example is this publication. Thriller is a bitcoin publication that holds its servers in the Netherlands and operates on an open-source platform called Ghost. We also have a pod that generates sats every day through its podcasts. We also have two fantastic bitcoin-only companies sponsoring us, PlebLab and Zaprite. Who also pay us in Bitcoin. I can use Zaprite to generate this sponsorship invoice to my bitcoin wallet. We also have enabled sat tipping through an amazing plugin created by the crew at Alby that works flawlessly. I do not need to paywall anything. Not to mention I earn sats on every post at Stacker News. The tools to become a lightning-enabled media company are here.

Ultimately lightning-enabled media companies will become the last media companies for several reasons. One of them is the number of sats the publication makes directly from its readers and listeners who support it. But the true driving force in the interim will be the companies who identify with these lightning-enabled publishers because of brand suitability. We are not reinventing the wheel here; we are just moving into a new way of advertising. Lightning-enabled media companies will primarily be judged on the advertisers it chooses and the quality of their work.

Brand Suitability is a measure of the overall compatibility between an advertiser’s goals and the content where an ad is being displayed next to. The goal is to create positive brand associations and campaign outcomes while minimizing risk. It’s difficult for marketers to ensure that their ads will not be displayed alongside high-risk content, or even content that is in the wrong category altogether. Balancing these constraints can help ensure that the publisher, and the content it is displayed alongside, are brand suitable and will yield high quality results. Identifying brand suitable publishers to partner with requires you to start by searching within your target industry. This depends on how well you can ensure that the publishers who host your ads resonate with your product or service. Visit these pages, look for the amount of ads that they display, gauge the quality and uniqueness of their content, verify that they provide a good user experience. These are all key indicators of a strong, brand suitable site.

The 2020s have been an exciting time for many of us. We have all had our ups and downs. Sure the old fiat world was great, but it doesn't mean it was a level playing field for everyone. Media these days has become nothing more than narrative control. We need more voices spreading the light. Big tech is a massive surveillance tool to profit from you, and big pharma wants to kill you. But we all know that fiat money perpetuates all of it.

The trees in Atlanta were almost as high as the skyscrapers, which was insanely memorable.

Meeting bitcoiners in other cities is truly a blessing; our culture is precious and something to cherish; friends and family are the only things that matter.

Thriller October Sponsor - Zaprite
Thriller October Sponsor - ⚡️PlebLab