You could sense it when ebooks and ereaders peaked in 2015. You could even sense it when we all found out no one was using millions of dedicated apps beyond the handful that they really use on a daily basis. Hell, you could sense it when iPad didn’t turn out to be the savior of media, which now feels like eons ago.
Who were we trying to fool?
Therein comes the biggest lie in all this, now exposed: There is no secret sauce in media.
There is no outside savior coming to rescue.
It is all you. The value you build with your editorial. The value you can create by being focused on doing a few things very, very well.
The relationship you build with your dedicated users, direct, tangible and non-disposable. Creating and holding to your own core while everyone else run themselves to exhaustion. By stepping away from the churn.
By creating unique residents, not unique visitors. By creating something people want to come to, deliberately, again and again, and stay. Now that’s a freakin’ novel idea, isn’t it?