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

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."  Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing.  ------- This week's sponsor: Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot. Their customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.