This is one of your best! Thanks for engaging the topic honestly and not handwaving a bs conclusion. In addition to a creators, it got me thinking about what a company will do with their website. Does it just become an MCP server that advertises what it does to agents searching? Then you'll really have to provide niche and differentiated content, services, or products because the agent can evaluate it quickly against thousands of alternatives. BTW, Yoni Rechtman at Slow Ventures published an open source mcp server to his content. Used it the other day in a strategy session with Claude about my new startup. It was awesome.
Personally I think there's a lot in community around thinking like yours. As someone building I want to learn from other builders but I only have a few mechanisms to filter for those people. I got inspired by this by seeing a clip of Mark Halprin's Two Way on YouTube. It's political and definitely skews older but I thought it was an amazing way to build something valuable in space full of sameness.
Theoretically possible but unlikely IMO. Too hard to tell agents from human users on the internet. Everything is more likely to be gate kept by capital.
Your post highlights a key structural threat. The mechanism—a technology-driven intermediary (the AI agent) that eliminates the creator-consumer relationship—is a direct parallel to the music industry's evolution from physical records to streaming. What specific lessons can the broader content ecosystem learn from how music rights holders and artists are now navigating licensing and platform defenses?
More critically, doesn't this system run a high risk of an "AI starvation loop"? If the economic value of content falls to zero, the incentive to produce high-quality new material disappears. The AI models, dependent on fresh, human-created fuel, would eventually degrade as they are forced to ingest their own low-quality, synthetic output ("slop"). Is the industry's implicit bet that it will reach AGI before this collapse starves the models entirely
This highlights for me that importance of writing for both humans and machines. But onne thing I’d push back on ...
This argument assumes content is the primary commodity of the internet. But since the rise of the creator economy, what people actually pay for is relationship and community, not content.
As much as I wish creators and the relationships with their fans made the same as traditional content, that is not the case yet. Case in point, you aren't a paid subscriber! So, I have to find a way to monetize your reading of my content that is not built on us building a relationship :)
People become paid subscribers because you are offering something valuable specifically to them ... content is sometimes the means, but rarely the thing.
... and most successful creators aren't trying to convert everyone, just those they provide the most value for.
Substack is a very different model from traditional publishing, but I think it is the way the world is going.
That said, I'm not a big player :-), just what I've observed.
This is one of your best! Thanks for engaging the topic honestly and not handwaving a bs conclusion. In addition to a creators, it got me thinking about what a company will do with their website. Does it just become an MCP server that advertises what it does to agents searching? Then you'll really have to provide niche and differentiated content, services, or products because the agent can evaluate it quickly against thousands of alternatives. BTW, Yoni Rechtman at Slow Ventures published an open source mcp server to his content. Used it the other day in a strategy session with Claude about my new startup. It was awesome.
Personally I think there's a lot in community around thinking like yours. As someone building I want to learn from other builders but I only have a few mechanisms to filter for those people. I got inspired by this by seeing a clip of Mark Halprin's Two Way on YouTube. It's political and definitely skews older but I thought it was an amazing way to build something valuable in space full of sameness.
I think there will be 2 layers of the internet in the future.
Layer 1: bots, agents, content feeding AI models, booking platforms communicating via MCP, algorithms, quick suggestions.
Layer 2: A slow internet based on real human identity.
reason being optimisation and real human connection cannot co exist in the same space.
Thoughts?
Theoretically possible but unlikely IMO. Too hard to tell agents from human users on the internet. Everything is more likely to be gate kept by capital.
Idk I may be too idealistic but I'm taking on the burden of building such a platform. Self funded
Your post highlights a key structural threat. The mechanism—a technology-driven intermediary (the AI agent) that eliminates the creator-consumer relationship—is a direct parallel to the music industry's evolution from physical records to streaming. What specific lessons can the broader content ecosystem learn from how music rights holders and artists are now navigating licensing and platform defenses?
More critically, doesn't this system run a high risk of an "AI starvation loop"? If the economic value of content falls to zero, the incentive to produce high-quality new material disappears. The AI models, dependent on fresh, human-created fuel, would eventually degrade as they are forced to ingest their own low-quality, synthetic output ("slop"). Is the industry's implicit bet that it will reach AGI before this collapse starves the models entirely
This highlights for me that importance of writing for both humans and machines. But onne thing I’d push back on ...
This argument assumes content is the primary commodity of the internet. But since the rise of the creator economy, what people actually pay for is relationship and community, not content.
As much as I wish creators and the relationships with their fans made the same as traditional content, that is not the case yet. Case in point, you aren't a paid subscriber! So, I have to find a way to monetize your reading of my content that is not built on us building a relationship :)
People become paid subscribers because you are offering something valuable specifically to them ... content is sometimes the means, but rarely the thing.
... and most successful creators aren't trying to convert everyone, just those they provide the most value for.
Substack is a very different model from traditional publishing, but I think it is the way the world is going.
That said, I'm not a big player :-), just what I've observed.