Meta Creates Toll Road, LinkedIn Fakes Getting Rid of AI Slop (534)

About this episode

This week, the boys open with Meta's new subscription plans for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Meta AI. The features are mostly small upgrades, but the bigger story is clear: Meta is building a toll road around access, visibility and creation. The rent on rented land keeps going up.

From there, Joe and Robert talk about LinkedIn's campaign against "AI slop." LinkedIn says it wants to reduce low-value AI content, generic posts and engagement bait. But is it really getting rid of anything, or just marketing the idea of a cleaner feed? The platform rewarded slop long before AI arrived. AI just made it easier to scale.

Winners and Losers

Joe's winner is YouTube creator Curry Barker and the box office success of Obsession, another reminder that creators can still break through outside the traditional Hollywood machine.

Robert's winners are OpenAI's new CMO and brands making music videos.

Rants and Raves

Joe raves about The Guardian's U.S. success and its growing donation-supported business. It's a strong example of a media company building direct audience trust and turning that trust into revenue.

Robert's commentary is on Rand Fishkin's take that "inimitable product" is the new "make great content."

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Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/

Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/ Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/.

Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/ Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/

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This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork