It’s almost like Volo and Finn are standing on the beach, enjoying the sight of water retreating just before a tsunami hits. While not a single person is yelling, one can sense that whatever this is, something about it isn’t right. Just a few years prior, Substack was not well-known—now, it feels every single publisher is grasping onto their own digital life preserver. Publishers used to upload tons of content to the internet and hope someone found it; these days, everyone seems to be watching social media giants hoard all the attention. Suddenly, community has become the new center of focus, and no one seems to know which direction is up or down.

Let us not forget the idea that perhaps, over seventy publishers, probably even more at this stage, are no longer recycling old magazines or sitting around ad spaces. It remains fuzzy whether it is primarily events or those smaller, tailored subscriptions that some label as niche while others refer to as “different.” Real change isn’t about throwing a copy of your neighbor’s work and calling it a day; as Volo likes saying, deep change requires poking at what your own crowd struggles with. It may be quite noisy, but not everyone moves for the same reasons.

Wait—does this signal the end for print? Not exactly. For instance, Finn has noticed that roughly seven out of ten publishers are not just relying on ads and those antiquated magazines anymore. Some are exploring things like live events or subscriptions that only a select niche audience would care about. For their part, Volo maintains that real progress is not about following what others do; rather, it is about understanding what “strange” problems your own readers actually have. It’s incredible how we overlook that.

As far back as I can recall, a bit over a hundred publishers stopped using ads as a primary tool to market their services. Some experimented with live events and even niche membership models. Volo hypothesized that there must be a limit to following the crowd. Instead of copying one another, it sounds like people would get much closer to the mark if they figured out those strange gripes audiences have and never voice.

Volo has been making this argument for quite a while now: there is no niche that is not being catered or served. Any audience—strange as it may sound—consists of small peculiar needs that do not conform to a larger framework. However, it is possible. You can delete yourself from the focus of every other audience and a crowd that wants what is not being offered.

While finishing mugs that are half full, I hear the constant rhythmic banging of keyboards and Finn mentioning that three-quarters of publishers have shifted attention from adverts and print. With uncertain levels of engagement, small niche events pop up out of nowhere. Volo has always been one to add his two cents, and I have no doubt that the real secret to standing out is needless copying of existing ideas. Instead, focus on truly understanding what your readers want, not what is proposed to everyone else.

Finn leans somewhere between curiosity and suspicion. Volo suddenly cuts in to remind Finn that there’s no point impersonating the competition because that is not what gets results. Sometimes I feel these new approaches tend to overcomplicate matters instead of getting to the point.

To the best of my recollection, three-quarters of the publishers have stopped relying exclusively on advertisements and print. It was not an easy hypothesis to settle onto when hearing Volo speak about niche subscriptions and their use in almost every other marketing campaign. You are not impressing anyone by resorting to defeatist alternatives. Finn described this concept perfectly when he said: “No point chasing what everyone else chases.” It kind of attains a certain sense, doesn’t it? If this caught your attention, see what else we found.

While standing in the middle of a news floor, some sharp end conclusion made Finn say something along the lines of not a single publisher sticks to ads or what used to be print these days. I guess most people overlook the fact that every organisation has its own struggles. Volo trying to remind the audience that chasing what the competitor does doesn’t fix what grumbles, it’s quite logical why people end up frustrated.

In all of this, Finn points out how he thinks at least more than half some publishers he has encountered aren’t just stuck to ads or ink on paper anymore, there is some movement towards hosting their own events or possibly subscriptions for extremely niche products that no one else offers. Volo, always interested in other perspectives, asks whether neigbor’s practice of mimetism has any value; without knowing what your audience is wrestling with, it’s impossible to avoid creating one more me-too product.