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RIP BuzzFeed: Is It The End of An Era For Digital Media?
And is your beloved platform at risk too?
It’s finally happened.
The news that we have all been secretly wishing would never be broken did break a few days ago: Buzzfeed would be shutting operations.
And with this news came a number of questions: Is this the beginning of the end for these pioneering digital media firms? Are the likes of Gawker and Vice at risk of going bust too?
What about your favourite platform —Medium —will it be swept by the Tsunami of businesses going bust in the era of dried up funding from Silicon Valley?
While we may seek to draw a distinction between Medium, Substack, Vocal on the one hand and the likes of BuzzFeed and Gawker on the other, the truth is that every one of these players came to prominence off the back of Silicon Valley’s money and their survival is contingent on the continued existence of endless supply of funds from VCs.
And this is especially true for Medium.
Why?
A number of prominent players have written about the marked decline in their numbers (earnings and views) to which they have become accustomed.
As I have pointed in other articles, this isn’t at all by accident but by design.