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You know the phrase "history repeats itself"? We're living in it; we're always living in it. We may live our entire lives in history, and I would happily take that bet. Maybe I wrote this because Mike Levy left Pinkbike. Maybe it was because my feed has been getting hammered with similar articles. (In light of linking the SIxAI article, news just hit the feed that some top execs have been ousted over the AI writers debacle.)
I want to focus on the trends the internet is going through, mostly the enshittification of modern media. That's a term you've probably heard before and one you're bound to hear repeatedly as online media gets worse and worse until we hit our breaking point. I'm unsure if you've noticed, but this black Friday has been rife with some of the worst content I've ever seen from corporate media. It's probably a little bit due to AI, but it's mostly because advertisers have homed in how to best get your money.
If you're still with me through that hypothetical, I want to introduce a few ideas to you. As a caveat, there are, of course, amazing pieces of media being produced daily; it's just harder and harder to find them.
Casey's Media-Driven Hot Takes
Blogs will make a comeback
Some of the few people who read my blog have given me light grief about it, and I tell them the same thing every time: this blog isn't for you. It's for me. That's still the truth. But I've recently gone on a little bit of a blogger binge, trying to fill my emails with more quality content and less "Top 10 SHIT products you NEEEEED this winter!". One theme I've noticed from those bloggers is that a) they recently picked it back up, and b) they think blogging might just take off again.
I like to think along the same lines. The only thing I sell my audience on is bikes, cyclocross to be exact, because it's the cheapest, easiest way to get into the sport with the smallest, funniest, and fewest egos around. But small-time bloggers are great. We're not pushing affiliate marketing links or fake product reviews or doing much more than talking about everyday life and our niche hobbies. If you have a passing interest in any niche hobby, you can subscribe and get an "expert opinion" from someone you can trust isn't getting paid by advertisers to sully.
2. More people will subscribe to niche e-magazines, podcasts, or newspapers
Not too long ago, but before my time of having a semi-reliable paycheck, most people got their niche media through magazines. Things like Runners Mag, Mountain Bike Action, or even Climbers Mag (foreshadowing). Does your grocery store even have a magazine aisle anymore? It's a 50/50 bet, and you'd probably have to check and see before you came back with the answer.
The problem with all the "free media" floating around these days is that it's inundated with ads that look like articles, and until uBlock origin can somehow get into my inbox and stop the marketing emails from coming through or preventing me from clicking on articles disguised as cheap advertising, it's not going to get any better. You see, free media is getting endlessly shittier. And although there's a lot of good media out there, it is increasingly difficult to get ahold of. One of the publications that is ahead of the curve and doing the novel thing in today's content media landscape is The Escape Collective.
Let me give a very brief history lesson on The Escape Collective. Most of their writers were originally part of Cycling Tips, an independent news site that operated in Australia. Cycling Tips was known for making and breaking news in the world of road and gravel cycling. Cycling Tips was then bought by the beloved Pinkbike.com, and nothing really changed. Readers got a stretch of fun, cross-collaboration articles between some of the staff on both teams and from the outside and inside, all seemed well.
Then the bad guy shows up, Outside, Inc., specifically Robin Thurston, head pie-hole for the Outside Media Group. Outside is the corporate version of the van lifer you love to hate, as they are with most things. I say that tongue in cheek because I own an (old) van, and the few actual van lifers I've met are charming people. No, most people, when they think of van lifers, think of the folks with $120k Sprinter Vans decked to the nines in front of $800k houses conveniently close to nature areas. The well-to-dos. The haves vs. the have-nots.
Anyway. Outside Media Group buys Pinkbike.com (and Cycling Tips) and guts almost everyone behind the scenes at both companies (goodbye, fantasy bike sports, and the Advent Calendar). Shortly thereafter, they fired virtually all Cycling Tips staff, minus a few writers. In solidarity, everyone else at Cycling Tips (now Velo) jumped ship and crowdfunded The Escape Collective. I subscribe to them at the 'commenting' tier, and it's some of the best bike and life media money ($6 or $11/month) can buy. They seem to have also been able to keep some of the IT/UI/UX people on staff, as they have a wonderfully simple and functional website. Hire me, dammit.
3. Affiliate marketing is close to its peak
Affiliate marketing is not good content. That's it. That's my hot take for this section. The absolutely insane volume of affiliate marketing is not making the world a better place; it's making it worse, quickly. The ship has just about set sail on affiliate marketing, and I am excited for it to go the way of the dodo so that SEO "experts" can start focusing on something other than keyword-stuffing fluff pieces.
Want to see some of the worst media of the modern age? Look to affiliate content. Go to your Google and type in 'best cameras (bikes, telescopes, baseball gloves) of the year'. Suddenly, you will be inundated with dozens, if not hundreds, of articles spewing the same crap about the same 10-15 items from big companies in the marketplace. Just be careful not to click a link because if you do, you'll have marketing dollars coming at you left and right for weeks, if not months. These affiliate marketers make money not by you buying something in their article but by clicking a link so that Amazon or eBay knows that you're interested in that product. Once they know that, even if you don't purchase directly from that link, you're much more likely to purchase something soon. If Amazon or whoever can get your dollars, they'll pay that website that hosted that affiliate article upwards of 20% of the net haul for hosting that link.
Want a good example? Why in the ever-lasting hell would I care what All Trails, a crowdsourced app for finding hikes worldwide based on length, vertical, and difficulty, thinks about the Best Sweaters for Go-Getters. What does that even mean?!
This happened to me the other day. I was poking around, seeing if I could afford to snag a fancy camera at a budget price. I went to Google and punched in 'Best Affordable Nikon Pro-level Camera'. It immediately went to a legitimate-sounding website, to an article with no author, spewing out sensible cameras that seemed a decent price. $250 for a body, another $150 for a lens. Not too bad, I thought. I punched in the camera to Reddit, seeing if anyone had any experience. I quickly realized that the camera the affiliate suggested was essentially trash. Something I would spend $400 on and would either give up the hobby or continue to pursue it and be annoyed that I spent $400 on a shit product.
It's the same with every. Single. Product.
How the hell am I going to stay employed with this attitude?
4. Word of mouth has never been more valuable
As media continues to get enshittified until it (hopefully) finally gets better, we're going to rely more and more on word of mouth. As we get burned on products that are "reviewed and tested" by "real people" posing as fake affiliate marketing blogs and articles, we'll turn more to our trusted friends and loved ones for product reviews. Sure, I might recommend something that hasn't been made since 2018, but you'll at least be incentivized to look for the current iteration of that product.
The world will still be a consumption-driven machine long after all of us reading this blog die, but in the current moment, we can give ourselves a little bit of peace and quiet. We can silence the fake reviewers and once again trust our friends in real life over those found on Facebook.
Casey's cause for hope
AI will never ride a bike (probably). AI will not replace your friends (hopefully). AI is not tangible. Affiliate marketing can only hurt your wallet.
If we aspire to keep these things true and evident and surround ourselves with tangible friends and experiences, we can avoid the worst of corporate media over the coming years. You can ride a bike and tell your friends what feels good and what doesn't on it. You can go read a book, and if you want, you can spew information or misinformation to your heart's content about the contents until all your friends have either bought the book or are alienated from it. If you're like me, you can literally shove books into your friends' hands and force them to take them home, only telling them you'll take them back when they visit next.
Delete Instagram for a few weeks. Turn off Reddit for a month. Stay away from top ten lists. Subscribe to my blog 😉.
Much love.
-Casey
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