Evidence receipt / observation
Published · transcript-backedBen Thompson: observation
12 Feb 2026 Cheeky Pint Ben Thompson from Stratechery on AI ads, the end of SaaS, and the future of media
“The problem is the merchants who will make that bundle valuable have no incentive to join the bundle because they could make more just monetizing users directly.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Ben Thompson
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- observation
- Recorded
- 12 Feb 2026
- Publisher
- Cheeky Pint
Transcript context
…But can Substack just add a Substack Prime bundle on top of it and merchants can— The problem is the merchants who will make that bundle valuable have no incentive to join the bundle because they could make more just monetizing users directly. So imagine I'm on Substack. How much more revenue does Substack have to give me for me to trade $15 a month from my subscribers for a smaller amount from whoever's part of this? And so the problem is they have to really pay me off to be a part of it. Meanwhile, everyone who doesn't have any subscribers, of course they love to be in the bundle. So this is why the geographics— This feels solvable to me.…
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