Paywall Instead of Pageview: The Runaway of Financial Bloggers into the Subscription Age

More and more bloggers are leaving the open internet and relying on paywalls as AI and Google de-value free content. What does this mean for readers, authors and the future of financial blogs?

The question of whether artificial intelligence will “kill” blogging has been haunting the content scene since the advent of ChatGPT & Co. In hardly any other area do solo publishers - like myself - and small teams feel the disruption so directly: first the comments dwindled, then the reach in social media - and now, due to Google's new AI boxes, the organic search traffic that has always brought new readers to your own content is also disappearing.

Bloggers who - unlike me - rely on advertising banners or affiliate links will notice the drop in traffic directly in their bank account. This particularly affects financial bloggers, who have so far been able to market their content more successfully than other sectors via advertising. At least if they allow dubious advertising for dubious financial sites on their pages. Although I myself have always rejected the marketing of my writing via such advertising, I am nevertheless just as affected by the AI revolution as all other financial blogs.

Time for an assessment

In the past, publishing high-quality stock analyses was a good way to gain an excellent reputation on the open Internet, build up a high level of credibility with search engines via links and ultimately welcome more and more readers to your own writing via Google.

That's over now. Google now processes the free content provided by me and all other authors itself in the “AI Summaries”. These are now ubiquitous on Google pages and are so good that they often make visiting the original content, i.e. my blog, obsolete.

The core readership remains on the blogs - in my case a quite impressive German speaking community. However, when I analyze this more closely, I realize that I am reaching more and more financial professionals with my High-Growth-Investing blog (German) and the associated newsletter, but only a few young stock market participants. I am proud of the fact that my investment ideas and stock analyses are widely read by banks, asset managers and fund managers. But let's be honest: I started this blog many years ago to improve the underdeveloped equity culture in German-speaking countries and not to educate financial professionals about tech stocks for free.

Unfortunately, I am forced to make the sobering realization that the interest of private investors, especially newcomers to the stock market, in my content has declined significantly over the past one to two years. The vast majority of young investors today want to learn on the Internet how to get rich quickly on the markets. Be it with stocks, cryptos or whatever.

Anyone who, like me, first wants to share knowledge and then claims that “Get Rich Quick” is not a good idea is simply not of interest to the masses. Sad but true: with a long-term return of over 12% p.a., as I was able to achieve over decades, you are considered an underperformer by young people these days.

Over the past decade, it's been too easy to accumulate big book profits (and chunk risk) with a Nasdaq ETF or individual investments in Tesla, Nvidia, Palantir and the like. The prospect of achieving financial independence with my HGI strategy “only” in 25 or 30 years doesn't sound particularly attractive to many people.

The end of the open internet? Paywalls take over

What can independent authors do about this trend? How are you supposed to find new interested readers if Google no longer works as a source of organic traffic?

Of course, you could turn to performance marketing and pay Google or Meta to drive new visitors to your website. But this route is expensive and makes little sense for most independent bloggers.

Moreover, this would not solve the problem of AI shamelessly stealing ideas and exploiting them independently. Rather, it is obvious that authors of valuable content should prohibit or prevent free use by AI.

The easiest way to do this is through a paywall, as offered by Substack. This platform, which is based on subscription models, supports authors in building up a growing readership in return for a share of the revenue and also helps to publicize the content with all kinds of tools.

The switch to subscription models, which many financial bloggers are currently making, is less a trend than a necessary adaptation to the new, AI-driven search world.

Until now, paid subscriptions were not an option for me. Although I've been publishing my English-language content on my High Growth Investing Substack for almost two years now, I've also made it 100% free for my growing English-speaking readership. Of course, this also benefits the AI models, which soak up my content without giving me anything in return.

What's next in the age of AI?

Eight years after launching my high-growth investing blog Iin German), I have reached a critical point. I need to completely reorganize my work for the AI age. And I can only advise all bloggers and content creators out there to question themselves in the same way.

The internet will change dramatically in the AI age. The good old web, where users could find high-quality content for free, will be a thing of the past in just a few years. This is because AI will destroy the previous business models based on high-quality, human-generated content. What will be left of the open internet is a flood of more or less AI-generated content. I don't even dare to imagine what will happen when AI models increasingly learn from AI-generated content.

Today's internet is not sufficiently prepared for the age of AI. Content generated by AI needs to be labeled. However, this is not easy, as almost all authors - myself included - now use AI tools to optimize their own content. This means that there is not just black and white here, as AI is now also involved in one form or another in the vast majority of human-generated content.

What costs nothing is worth nothing

For years now, I've been hearing the well-intentioned recommendation to put a price tag on my content in order to gain appreciation. I have always smiled away this recommendation with the argument that I am fortunately financially independent and don't have to earn my living with advertising or subscriptions.

But there is a lot of truth to the old saying “What costs nothing is worth nothing”. High-quality content usually costs money and is incredibly valuable, especially in the field of financial analysis. As an investor, I spend much more money on subscriptions to highly specialized, independent publications than I did a year or two ago. The quality of some of them is outstanding. And with just one good investment idea, such a subscription has paid for itself for many years.

There are over five million paid subscriptions on Substack alone, many of which support financial bloggers and independent financial journalists. Many of them can now make a good living from their content. It has been pointed out to me that I am harming these independent authors with my free blog. Of course, this is not my intention and I would like to show solidarity with these authors. This unfortunate competitive situation also suggests an end to my previous strategy of making my knowledge available to everyone - and to the AI - completely free of charge.

The future of the High Growth Investing Substack

I don't yet know exactly how I'm going to set up my Substack for the AI age. I'll think about that in more detail in the coming weeks. But I do know that human investment experience and own brainpower in equity analysis and portfolio management - as in many other creative fields of activity - will continue to have great added value in the age of AI.

It is now important for us financial bloggers, as for all other knowledge workers, to be sufficiently flexible and to respond to the challenges that AI brings with it.

We are living in exciting times. How do you see the future of financial blogs in the open internet?

I’m looking forward to your comments.