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?
I think your thoughts are right. And your paid subscription/paywall will come – I'm convinced of it. But of course, you won't win over the young crowd with that – they're all on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Maybe a few finance professionals will finally be willing to pay a subscription fee.
Perhaps you could use teasers or offer the first 30% of your article for free, or special offers on Black Friday, Christmas, etc., to increase your subscription readership.
For myself, I have to think carefully about which subscriptions are indispensable in the future because of budget-limits. for example, ‘Seeking Alpha’ is (still) indispensable for me, but I'm already considering cancelling my membership of 'i/o-fund' next year.
I have included a few YouTube channels in my daily morning routine that provide me with extremely good information, often right up to the minute. As always, 90% of them are "not in German!"
I wish you the best of luck with your new business ideas, and even though I don't always agree with your stock picks, I consider you to be one of the best German finance bloggers in the tech sector, where there is unfortunately so much rubbish and noises, that you have to filter out as much as possible.
Final thought:
Would you like to share your thoughts and opinions - before starting our paywall - on the two relatively new tech ETFs (IVES) Revolution by Dan Ives and Tommi Lee's Granny Shots (GRNY)? I am interested to here your thoughts about it. Thanks
Thank you for your valuable feedback. YouTube creators in finance face the same challenge as the finance bloggers. Almost every YT channel in finance faces a decreasing viewerships. So many YT channels will go away in the next 2-3 years.
I will have a look on the new tech ETFs (IVES) Revolution by Dan Ives and Tommi Lee's Granny Shots (GRNY). Not sure if they are worth a blog article yet...
Hi Rene, yes. All users who invest together with my HGI-depot on plutos can get free access. For EU data privacy reasons I don‘t have a customer list, so please DM me, if you‘re interested. Best, Stefan
Hello Stefan, your reasoning is completely understandable. I just hope the paywall will be low enough to be able to jump over it from a low platform (deposit volume). I've been following you since the pandemic. Unfortunately, in addition to paying off our loan for our owner-occupied condo and the low MSCI All World savings rate, I can only pay a low three-digit amount into my Tech Value+Growth portfolio every year with which I take up your HGI ideas. I hope you find a good way to serve and reach all interested parties and potentially interested parties.
Agree with the need to use paywalls against AI. My immediate thought was to offer a $1 subscription tier if you intended on keeping your content as accessible as possible, while potentially blocking the content from AI. however, I’m not sure of the minimum paid tier that can be set by Substack or what your intentions were with a paid subscription. Whatever you choose will be the right decision.
Interesting idea. Another option could be to give away subs for free for those who can‘t afford to pay (e.g. students). And for sure I don’t want to charge the people that invest together with me. I‘ll find my way…
The thing is there is indeed a lot of financial bloggers going paid but I think while going paid is fair for anyone in reality not everyone should and probably those who shouldn’t will get washed out over time (harsh truth I know).
I’m myself is guilty of having paid tier but it’s not that expensive and mostly for more private things as a lot of things I have are still “free” also I provide free complimentary subscriptions to anyone with .edu
We indeed live in interesting times and I think at some point bundling will become a thing (probably) since most people will not be able to pay full price for everything at all time or I guess there will be a lot of turnover otherwise
I like the idea of giving away complimentary subscriptions to people with .edu. How can you do that with Substack? Is it something you have to do manually or is this supported by the platform?
Personally I do it manually, I know you can give discounts to certain .edu or .org or w/e that happens automatically but I’m not sure you can do 100% free
Hallo Stefan, as a “private user” I really appreciate your blog with the stock reviews and your thoughts on certain themes being quite inspiring. I wasn’t aware of the exploitation of creative human bloggers by AI, so I understand the idea of a paywall as a possible solution to this problem. For me you already proved the high quality of your content, so I must admit that I would be willing to pay for it. Happy to hear your recommendations on other free/paid publications from other bloggers.
I think your thoughts are right. And your paid subscription/paywall will come – I'm convinced of it. But of course, you won't win over the young crowd with that – they're all on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Maybe a few finance professionals will finally be willing to pay a subscription fee.
Perhaps you could use teasers or offer the first 30% of your article for free, or special offers on Black Friday, Christmas, etc., to increase your subscription readership.
For myself, I have to think carefully about which subscriptions are indispensable in the future because of budget-limits. for example, ‘Seeking Alpha’ is (still) indispensable for me, but I'm already considering cancelling my membership of 'i/o-fund' next year.
I have included a few YouTube channels in my daily morning routine that provide me with extremely good information, often right up to the minute. As always, 90% of them are "not in German!"
I wish you the best of luck with your new business ideas, and even though I don't always agree with your stock picks, I consider you to be one of the best German finance bloggers in the tech sector, where there is unfortunately so much rubbish and noises, that you have to filter out as much as possible.
Final thought:
Would you like to share your thoughts and opinions - before starting our paywall - on the two relatively new tech ETFs (IVES) Revolution by Dan Ives and Tommi Lee's Granny Shots (GRNY)? I am interested to here your thoughts about it. Thanks
Thank you for your valuable feedback. YouTube creators in finance face the same challenge as the finance bloggers. Almost every YT channel in finance faces a decreasing viewerships. So many YT channels will go away in the next 2-3 years.
I will have a look on the new tech ETFs (IVES) Revolution by Dan Ives and Tommi Lee's Granny Shots (GRNY). Not sure if they are worth a blog article yet...
Hey Stefan,
is your blog free accessable for users who invest in your hgi-depot on plutos?
Kind regards, Rene
Hi Rene, yes. All users who invest together with my HGI-depot on plutos can get free access. For EU data privacy reasons I don‘t have a customer list, so please DM me, if you‘re interested. Best, Stefan
Hello Stefan, your reasoning is completely understandable. I just hope the paywall will be low enough to be able to jump over it from a low platform (deposit volume). I've been following you since the pandemic. Unfortunately, in addition to paying off our loan for our owner-occupied condo and the low MSCI All World savings rate, I can only pay a low three-digit amount into my Tech Value+Growth portfolio every year with which I take up your HGI ideas. I hope you find a good way to serve and reach all interested parties and potentially interested parties.
Agree with the need to use paywalls against AI. My immediate thought was to offer a $1 subscription tier if you intended on keeping your content as accessible as possible, while potentially blocking the content from AI. however, I’m not sure of the minimum paid tier that can be set by Substack or what your intentions were with a paid subscription. Whatever you choose will be the right decision.
Interesting idea. Another option could be to give away subs for free for those who can‘t afford to pay (e.g. students). And for sure I don’t want to charge the people that invest together with me. I‘ll find my way…
Thanks Stefan, this is so relevant. I believe you are right, AI will commoditize a lot of content but what remains - high quality, true innovations
will become even more valuable. Love the pic, that’s AI?
Yes the pic was made with ChatGPT
The thing is there is indeed a lot of financial bloggers going paid but I think while going paid is fair for anyone in reality not everyone should and probably those who shouldn’t will get washed out over time (harsh truth I know).
I’m myself is guilty of having paid tier but it’s not that expensive and mostly for more private things as a lot of things I have are still “free” also I provide free complimentary subscriptions to anyone with .edu
We indeed live in interesting times and I think at some point bundling will become a thing (probably) since most people will not be able to pay full price for everything at all time or I guess there will be a lot of turnover otherwise
I like the idea of giving away complimentary subscriptions to people with .edu. How can you do that with Substack? Is it something you have to do manually or is this supported by the platform?
Personally I do it manually, I know you can give discounts to certain .edu or .org or w/e that happens automatically but I’m not sure you can do 100% free
Hallo Stefan, as a “private user” I really appreciate your blog with the stock reviews and your thoughts on certain themes being quite inspiring. I wasn’t aware of the exploitation of creative human bloggers by AI, so I understand the idea of a paywall as a possible solution to this problem. For me you already proved the high quality of your content, so I must admit that I would be willing to pay for it. Happy to hear your recommendations on other free/paid publications from other bloggers.
Thank you very much for your kind feedback!