Reach is rented. What a creator owns is the real asset.
Netflix keeps signing YouTube creators for millions, and still lets them publish on YouTube. It is not buying the videos. It is buying access to an audience it can never take. Meanwhile paid newsletters have turned into real businesses, and Adobe found that when everyone can produce content at will, standing out comes down to voice, not volume. The pattern is the same everywhere. A follower count sits on a platform nobody controls. A newsletter, a show, a community belongs to the creator. That is the part worth paying for.
