Source: America, America
The explicit appeal to independence—framed as freedom from mainstream media constraints—is becoming a viable competitive moat for smaller publishers willing to build direct subscriber relationships. This reflects not legacy media's failure to monetize (they've largely solved that) but their failure to offer the ideological or structural alternative that growing segments of readers actively prefer. Advertisers and platforms will have to reckon with individuals who stake their reputation on being distinctly *not* beholden, as narrative power redistributes toward them.