Evidence receipt / belief
Published · transcript-backedBen Thompson: belief
12 Feb 2026 Cheeky Pint Ben Thompson from Stratechery on AI ads, the end of SaaS, and the future of media
“I think you're with Stripe, you're on the skepticism side. I think ads are amazing.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Ben Thompson
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- belief
- Recorded
- 12 Feb 2026
- Publisher
- Cheeky Pint
Transcript context
…I gasp. It's like, “What are you doing with your life?” And so I get the knee-jerk reaction and that Stripe at some level is kind of the anti-advertising company and we're the opposite form of monetization. But I don't know, I have no particular issue. I think it's a very efficient form of monetization. It makes a lot of sense for certain products. And so I think it's just different strokes. I think you're with Stripe, you're on the skepticism side. I think ads are amazing. And I'm talking about my book a little bit. Stratechery has gotten tremendous traction just by not hating ads, even though I'm not an ad model myself. Exactly, but you're a paid model.…
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