One thing that came up tonight is the creator pay gap between Black creators and white creators. Well documented in the brand deal space. Less so in the paid subscription space but exists there too. I ran a survey about this last year and we did some live sessions. Three things kept coming up.
Lex Roman
Currently watching "Is Substack for sellouts?" with @angelahollowell.bsky.social @michellejackson.bsky.social @coreygumbs.bsky.social open.substack.com/live-stream/163194
Apr 16, 2026 at 2:16 AM
Pocketstars: The creator site where payments don’t always happen
With the influx of creator sites such as Onlyfans, rivals have been popping up everywhere. However, all are not equal and it’s vital that…
Has Substack’s subscription model really “maxed out?”
Scott Carney and Taylor Lorenz posted on Substack about downward subscriber trends they’re seeing. Carney pins it on subscription fatigue and feeling like “The only way to grow is to pillage the paid subscribers from other creators.” Lorenz questions Substack’s direction, saying “more and more like this app is becoming another social media feed.” When we recently wrote about writers who are leaving Substack, they mentioned control, pricing, and the social feature creep among their reasons for choosing competitors like Ghost and Behiiv. [Link: Writers are fleeing the Substack Tax | https://www.theverge.com/tech/927294/substack-tax-ghost-beehiiv | The Verge]
a simple (local) solution to the pay gap — wingolog
wingolog: article: a simple (local) solution to the pay gap
What can news publishers learn from creators? Interview with Simon Owens
Don't leave money on the table and think outside the box about business models
Meet the AI OnlyFans: How one startup raised millions to build an ‘erotic companions’ platform | Kai Nicol-Schwarz
Meet the AI OnlyFans: How one startup raised millions to build an ‘erotic companions’ platform --- When AI erotic companion startup Oh raised a $4.5m funding round in January, it had something few in the shadowy new sector could boast. A roster of named investors, publicly backing the company. VCs are often bound by “vice clauses”, which prohibit firms from investing in controversial products like pornography or weapons. As a result, startups working on ethically contentious products often rely on angel investors and family offices to stay afloat. But Oh, which generates NSFW adult content and conversations with both fictional characters as well as bots based on real people, has tapped into a group of seemingly less squeamish investors: crypto VCs. It’s drawn backing from the likes of Tangent, Kosmos Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, Bodhi Ventures and Tagus Capital. “Raising money for a business like this from non-crypto VCs is very difficult,” says Oh founder and CEO Nic Young, who positions the startup as a “decentralised platform” and offers payments via crypto. “A lot of crypto VCs don’t have vice clauses — it’s more liberal and free.” Oh wants to use those fresh funds to build the “AI OnlyFans”, with plans to roll out autonomous scantily clad bots that can market themselves on social media and direct message users with spicy conversation starters. The biggest challenge? Convincing enough users it’s not that weird turning to AI when you’re looking for romance. https://lnkd.in/eRF7a5Dn
MintStars
London, UK, 10th May 2023 - To tackle the challenges in the creator economy, MintStars has developed the world's first sex-positive NFT subscription platform. While the creator economy is booming, creators on platforms like OnlyFans often struggle with high fees, burnout, piracy, and censorship. Sex workers and LGBTQ+ creators face widespread discrimination; almost 2/3 of adult creators have lost a bank account or payment app. MintStars provides a more inclusive alternative with lower fees, using crypto-based payments to protect creators from financial exclusion and enabling creators to earn money from fans reselling their content.
Why Voluntary Payment Will Never Beat Ads
GREG ISENBERG on Twitter / X
I think the most interesting thing about Jack Dorsey's "Slack killer" is the idea around shared compute.I haven't seen people talk about it so here are my thoughts FWIW:Open models got good, close enough to the paid frontier stuff to run for real. But the strongest ones need… https://t.co/b5PBgYjAGL— GREG ISENBERG (@gregisenberg) July 25, 2026
🔭🖤🚀 Social media’s next evolution: decentralized, open-source, and scalable
How Blacksky grew to millions of users without spending a dollar
Black Star Network | News, Culture & Commentary by Roland Martin
lack Star Network delivers daily news, politics, culture, and commentary from Roland S. Martin and top Black thought leaders.
“No One’s Coming to Save Us. Why Communities Must Build Their Own Internet” -Rudy Fraser, Blacksky
The Artist Loft: Affordable Housing (for White People)
Do these tax-subsidized apartments perpetuate segregation by excluding some low-income households?
Former Substack creators say they’re earning more on new platforms that offer larger shares of subscription revenue
Former Substack writers who exited the platform in early 2024 are making more money on Beehiiv and Ghost thanks to their fixed pricing models.
Wages for Facebook - Dissent Magazine
The art campaign Wages for Facebook is an attempt to unsettle the digital marketization of our relationships that many of us have already come to accept as normal.
I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit
Anthropic are strongly rumored to be about to have their first profitable quarter. Stories are circulating of companies surprised at how expensive their LLM bills are becoming from usage by …