Evidence receipt / evaluation
Published · transcript-backedBen Thompson: evaluation
12 Feb 2026 Cheeky Pint Ben Thompson from Stratechery on AI ads, the end of SaaS, and the future of media
“I've made this disagreement before and they get mad about it, but they characterize themselves as being totally writer-friendly. And I think that was a mistake because it's impossible for them to be ultimately writer-friendly because the most writer-friendly setup is running an open source software on your own server.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Ben Thompson
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- evaluation
- Recorded
- 12 Feb 2026
- Publisher
- Cheeky Pint
Transcript context
…How does this apply to your world? Because in theory, there should be bundles. Substack should be a bundle. You should be able to have one fee and get everything, but they started…I think a mistake Substack made, and I'm a huge Substack fan, just to be clear. I've made this disagreement before and they get mad about it, but they characterize themselves as being totally writer-friendly. And I think that was a mistake because it's impossible for them to be ultimately writer-friendly because the most writer-friendly setup is running an open source software on your own server. Then no one can do anything to you. I thought you were going to say the most writer friendly thing is to have a humming consumer business.…
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