A market of goods has a price floor and a price ceiling. A market of experiences has neither. Goods operate within cost, distribution, and supply. Experiences operate within emotion, participation, and meaning.

The “ads are bad” narrative became cultural dogma, repeated so long it hardened into truth. But most people grew up with ads. They see them as the background cost of access, the stream that funds participation. If anything, people are more frustrated by paywalls than prerolls.

So my shadow isn’t really gone—it’s still following me, just a little further away. I won’t be able to say “C’mon, Cassidy” anymore, though I’m sure I will accidentally from time to time. And I really hope I do.

The internet broke the rhythm of media. We went from appointment viewing to infinite on-demand, and somewhere in between, we lost the shared sense of time that made media feel alive. The next frontier isn’t more content—it’s rediscovering how and when we show up together.

Industries that seem fixed are still reshaped when private processes, decisions, or transactions become public. Transparency creates opportunities for innovation, competition, and value creation, rewarding businesses that design around these new behaviors. In today’s economy, moving from private to public is less a choice and more a structural necessity, as value flows to those who engage openly with observable market forces.

In 2017 we tried to build a more open media economy with Po.et, but the market wasn’t ready and the incentives weren’t aligned. Today, the internet is becoming programmable. Content itself can hold value, route payments, and transact autonomously. What used to be attention-based inventory is evolving into a financial system where media, money, and participation merge into one programmable layer.

I’ve been building and investing in the consumer lane of crypto for nearly a decade. From product roadmap to go to market strategy, I've helped founders navigate constant obstacles, but the most recurring issue stems from where to start - prioritizing an existing market or leveraging crypto to catalyze new behaviors and create new markets. One reality that we can all admit today is that crypto needs to establish its value beyond cyclical trends. This happens by focusing on specific crypto use...

We’re addicts in a knife storm of attention, reacting to every spike, losing control of what we want and who we are.

The internet has convinced us that media needs to be 24/7. Our feed has to keep feeding us, regardless of whether we’re thirsty or not. The mechanics keep us engaged and addicted. We have little time to think or consider what we consume before going on to the next thing. Just like music, media benefits from silence. But in today’s world, that’s hard to get.

Media has changed. While many cling to old ideals, the shift has been underway for a long time. This is the cause of the internet. When information was finite, consumers gravitated toward accuracy, depth, and insight. In a world of infinite information, the opposite happened.