Pew Pew.. Pting! Ptang!
Shots Fired… AI Is Killing Home Based Information Publishing!
I’ve been saying it for a while now but if you want to make money online in 2026 and beyond, you should consider focusing on an offline business or subject.
And more specifically expertise and experiences surrounding an offline business.
The internet is changing and AI is taking over a lot of the traditional internet marketing stuff.
It’s certainly taking a lot of the money out of it.
Why pay several hundred dollars to learn how to do affiliate marketing when AI can tell you how to do it.
I’m not talking about the basics either, it can outline an actionable plan based on all of the other actionable plans it has seen over the last couple of years.
So far, the only thing AI cannot do is show you what to do exactly… but there are plenty of faceless channels on YouTube that are using AI to create videos which will show you what to do.
Plus, a lot of videos and books are full of personal fluff, filler and waffle, and so a lot of people are turning to AI to generate quick easy-to-follow summaries so they don’t have to waste a lot of time extracting the information they want.
The Death Knell To Information Publishing
AI really is going to be the death knell to home based individual information publishing as a business.
We may still have a few years left where people can make decent money selling courses, PDFs, and programs, but I see that going the way of Westerns did in Hollywood after the 60s.
Westerns were hugely popular movies back in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, but then their popularity declined so much that very few get made today.
Not many people are interested in cowboys shooting at each other and that is what I think will happen with online information publishing… it will become dead as a Western.
In a year or two, buying information products such as courses and eBooks is going to be retired to the hospice where it lies in bed dying, fighting to cling on to life for as long as possible.
One or two people will be around to help and care for it, but most people will be outside in the real world getting on with life.
Yes, I’m sure a few people will still be able to make money selling PDFs based around specific niche topics, but they will be very niche and I imagine they will be very visual in nature.
I’m thinking of foot fetishes, etc.
The Future Is Going To Be About Connection!
I believe the future is going to be about real ‘connection’.
Paid communities and one-to-one coaching/meets focusing on actual real life expertise and experiences.
I believe people are really only going to pay to have access to someone who has done (or does) something specific and can show them EXACTLY what to do.
I hate to use this analogy… but online information publishing is going to go the way of the adult industry which is…
…you can find a helluva lot of porn online for free, but if you want the REAL experience and expertise you will need to pay to meet with a guy or a gal for an hour or two.
Big Tech Are Killing Information Publishing
Big tech have information publishing stitched up between them.
Information is now being given away for free by all big tech companies.
Information itself is becoming worthless.
Their AIs have stolen all of the information they needed from everyone else and they are building on that as more and more people use it.
And more and more people are using it.
Each day we are bombarded by adverts encouraging us to use Siri, Alexa, CoPilot, Gemini, and ChatGPT, etc.
Why buy a museum guide when you can ask your phone what something is? (As seen in recent Samsung adverts here in the UK.)
Why buy a book to learn flower arranging when you can ask your phone which flowers look good together? (As seen in recent Samsung adverts here in the UK.)
More and more people are turning to AI tools for quick access to information and answers.
It’s getting like Star Trek where people simply ask ‘computer’ when they need anything.
It won’t be long before you can say “Alexa, make me a water colour image of [whatever]” and it will create the image, machines will print it off, frame it, and pop it into the post.
It may even get delivered to your front door by a drone or robot.
I mean, it’s not like we don’t already have drones and robots delivering items to people!
The Time Is Now To Focus Your Efforts On An Offline Online Hybrid Business
Truth is, if you have not yet considered starting an online community around an ‘offline’ industry or niche, you need to.
Part of me hopes I am wrong and that the people who are constantly yelling that AI is levelling the playing field and giving everyone the opportunity to become an information publisher are right.
However, I personally believe they are deluded fools who have embraced ‘the future’ so hard that they have actually stopped ‘seeing the future’!
The future is about AI evolving so that it is faster and can deliver the answers to every question asked.
If AI can quickly deliver all the information people need without them having to trawl through several websites with multiple annoying pop-up adverts sifting through all of the personal fluff or filler for their answers…
…or without having to buy PDFs and be bombarded with emails offering upsells, cross promotions, and one time offers…
…and that these AIs are learning as more and more people interact with them, gaining more knowledge, information, and getting quicker with their delivery of information…
… then who in the hell is going to pay to buy your PDF about writing, or about marketing, or about ketogenic foods?
Yes, people are buying PDFS and info products now, but that’s only because we are in the last period before they get phased out.
We are in the late 1960s trying to decide whether we should pay to watch another Western movie with the same old slow horses, six-shooters, and stuntmen falling from roofs onto bales of hay, or whether we should choose the new sci-fi which has supersonic spaceships, laser guns, and exciting special effects.
We are the 80s middleagers who are still buying records and fighting the urge to buy the new ‘soulless’ CDs that are flooding the market.
Even the die hard vinyl collectors who hated CDs now have large CD collections, why?
Because they are easier to store, easier to carry, and unlike records, they could be played in the car.
The same thing happened with CDs when MP3s and streaming services came along.
I myself still use CDs in the car, but I sold most of them and kept a few.
I also sold my extensive collection of records and now mostly listen to music online or as digital downloads.
My 30yr old daughter doesn’t even use CDs, she is a Spotify person.
She doesn’t even buy digital downloads.She doesn’t have a library of MP3s… she just listens to music via Spotify.
Do you know what else she does and doesn’t do?
I’ll tell you…
She doesn’t buy information, she doesn’t buy PDFs or video courses… she goes directly to ChatGPT and other AI.
So believe me when I tell you home based individual information publishing is about to die as a business.
It is being killed off by big tech who will dominate by giving it all away for free… or for a small monthly fee.
If you do not start working on an offline niche/subject focusing heavily on expertise and experiences… then I’m sorry to say, you simply won’t be able to compete with the big tech guys.
If you want to learn more about the offline online hybrid business model, I talk about it more in my community here: The Freedom Skills Academy,
Come over and check it out.
Until next time.
Have a great day.
Andi
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