Today, to make money in a fact-driven business, you must restrict access to information.
For example, those who originate high-quality news have large payrolls of journalists in the field, layers of editors and fact-checkers, etc. They typically fund the business by restricting access with subscriptions, paywalls, premium content, and the like.
Fact-based businesses have small audiences with high cost per customer.
But signal-based businesses that sell opinion, tribal identification, status and emotion thrive through broad distribution. They need to maximize social sharing and generate large audiences.
Signal-based businesses are typically free or have very low per-user costs. They selectively remix content from fact-based businesses for their audiences, and add commentary, outrage, emotion and tribal identity.
