We’ve been throwing around the term “late-stage capitalism” a lot this year, but I want to introduce you to a new one: late-stage media.
In the last year (really in the last few months), we’ve seen significant changes in the media landscape: mergers, AI slop, the enshittification of platforms. It brings up significant conversations we need to be having around media like ownerships and the reliance on specific platforms to run our entire media or creator business.
What’s more, this late-stage media hellscape makes consuming media no longer fun. All the content follows the same trends and offers little substance, leaving us to mindlessly scroll through the “brainrot” that fills our feeds.
And it’s because content is treated as a commodity rather than a tool for self-expression. If you’re a brand or business owner, content is no longer an option or a nice-to-have; it’s mandatory.
The platforms know this. Brands know this. It’s made it so everyone and everything is a media brand now, whether that’s their primary business model or not. It’s why everyone is so burned out creating it—and consuming it.
Enshittification of media & platforms
Every media platform has become enshittified. Enshittification describes the process by which online platforms degrade over time. It usually happens in three stages:
Good to Users: Platforms offer great features to attract users (e.g., free social connection, relevant search results).
Good to Business Customers: Once users are "locked in," platforms prioritize businesses (advertisers, sellers) with better visibility, often at the expense of users (more ads, less organic reach).
Good to the Platform (Extractive): Platforms then abuse both users and businesses to claw back value for themselves, leading to extreme monetization, data exploitation, and a generally unusable experience.
We’ve seen several platforms go to great lengths to lock users in and keep them on their platforms rather than turn to third-party tools. An example of this is the in-app editing tools on TikTok and Instagram. They are designed to keep the user in the app ecosystem and will ding your content if you don’t (for example, reposting a video edited through TikTok on Reels).
We’ve also seen this with platforms like Substack and Patreon, where the platform reaps all the benefits rather than the creator (high monetization, poor user experience, and inability to port data). Creators (and now major media outlets) are placing all their trust and reliance on these tech companies to run their businesses and control their relationships with their audiences, rather than choosing platforms that give them that control.
The enshittification of platforms also affects content quality. We’re living in a “bubblegum dystopia,” where there is always something to consume, but nothing of substance (hence, like chewing bubblegum).
It’s why we see feeds full of rage bait, memejacking, and trendjacking content, and streaming services full of cheaply produced movies with no plot or storytelling.
Because of the commoditization of content, it’s a race to the bottom, with a focus on producing quickly to chase every trend rather than on creativity or narrative development. The more the content is commoditized, the more it goes downhill creatively. You’re churning out low-quality products that ultimately degrade the brand by imitating it. Think fast fashion, but for content.
And unfortunately, if you can hack the system, you can build a media business. We see success stories all the time with newsletter growth bros who scaled their newsletters to 100K+ subscribers and $10M in less than a year by capitalizing on a generic niche, creating a lead magnet that aggregates other people’s information, and spending ungodly amounts of money to acquire subscribers.
There’s no emphasis on creating something new and innovative, but rather doing a “lift and shift” of what’s already there.
With advice like this from operators, it’s no wonder content has been enshittified. The result is an oversaturated market (and feed) of low-quality content. This dilutes the quality of content because you’re no longer getting experts writing, but anyone who knows how to prompt GPT or conduct a Google Keyword search.
A changing media landscape
Over the last year, we’ve seen some pretty major shakeups in the media landscape. The first being media mergers and consolidations. The latest acquisition, in which Netflix is seeking to acquire HBO Max and Warner Bros. Discovery, is part of a long line of consolidations we’ve seen.
These vast media empires are creating an oligarchic media landscape (almost something out of a dystopian novel or a Succession plotline), with few limited options for streaming. Moreover, it’s leaving consumers concerned about ownership, independent outlets, and increased political influence.
Through these acquisitions, there are growing concerns over access to media. The powers that be can choose to eliminate certain types of media from their catalog (similar to the banned books movement). This is encouraging consumers to revert to buying physical media so they can access media they otherwise can’t through streaming services.
Moreover, there are cost concerns too. The only reason streaming rose to popularity was that it offered a less expensive alternative to cable. Now, that might not be the case, as these media conglomerates can justify price increases due to the creative IP they hold.
These acquisitions are a means to an end, as legacy media seek to survive in the “new media” landscape. Entertainment studios not only have to compete with streaming services but also with social platforms like TikTok and YouTube to capture audiences’ attention.
And the battle doesn’t end there. Brands and creators are getting in on the action, too.
Everyone from fashion houses to SaaS to e-commerce companies considers themselves a “media brand” now:
SaaS brands like Notion, Box, and Ramp are investing heavily in editorial and storytelling content.
E-commerce brands like Under Armour and Dick’s Sporting Goods are building production studios.
Fashion brands like Chanel are producing cinematic-quality social content
Creators like Alex Cooper are creating entire media networks.
Soon, we won’t care whether the content we’re consuming comes from a creator, a brand, or an entertainment studio. If it’s good, we’ll consume it.
Lastly, we’re seeing a rise in independent journalists and media companies. As traditional media consolidated (and subsequently lost trust), more journalists are going independent. In fact, one-third of journalists are now creator-journalists. This is a trend that we’ll continue to see, especially as layoffs keep hitting newsrooms.
So where do we go from here?
To me, the new media landscape has these characteristics:
Transfer of trust between legacy media and creators. Merge journalistic rigor with the agility of the creative economy to deliver expertise and storytelling through independently run media platforms and content ecosystems, creating a new legion of trusted, credible sources to fill the gap left by traditional outlets.
Media-first brand-building. Media-first brands use content to connect, engage, and spark community. It’s using storytelling as the growth strategy: identifying ideas, narratives, and perspectives, then expressing them through diversified, transmedia storytelling that creates an immersive brand world for audiences to explore.
Cultivating cultural IP. Media is a cultural engine shaping our conversations, consumer behavior, and identity. It’s an investment in human capital and thinking, generating ideas that transcend platforms and time. These ideas don’t just influence culture; they ripple into markets, politics, and the broader economy, becoming cultural capital with long-term, compounding impact. They stick, evolve, and embed themselves into brand narratives.
Ownership over audiences and media. Ownership of our work and our audience will be the deciding factor in which platforms to use and which streaming services to support. Anyone who creates content needs to think about who owns their work and where it’s hosted. We’re no longer just in the creator economy, but in the content economy. As platforms continue to be enshittified, it’s up to us, as creators, to take control of our relationship with our audience.
Any late-stage anything is an indicator of one thing: a pendulum shift. And if these emerging media trends (and consumer behaviors) tell us anything, it’s that the landscape is about to undergo a significant change in the years ahead.