Content Is King: A Vision That Shaped the Internet
In January 1996, Bill Gates wrote an essay titled “Content Is King,” published on the Microsoft website. You can read the full article here, but I’m sharing a few excerpts below to emphasize just how visionary the essay was. Long before social media, creators, or platforms existed, Gates predicted a content-led internet economy.
“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.”
— Bill Gates
When it comes to an interactive network such as the Internet, the definition of “content” becomes very broad. Computer software, for example, is a form of content—an extremely important one—and for Microsoft, it would remain the most important.
One of the most exciting aspects of the Internet, Gates noted, was that anyone with a PC and a modem could publish whatever content they created. In many ways, the Internet became the multimedia equivalent of the photocopier—allowing material to be duplicated at extremely low cost, regardless of audience size.
The Internet also enabled information to be distributed worldwide at almost zero marginal cost to publishers. The opportunities were remarkable, and many companies began laying plans to create content specifically for the Internet.
Gates argued that if people were expected to turn on a computer and read from a screen, they needed to be rewarded with deep, up-to-date, and interactive information. Content would need to include audio, possibly video, and opportunities for personal involvement that went far beyond what print media could offer.
Most importantly, he made a critical point:
“For the Internet to thrive, content providers must be paid for their work.”
While the long-term prospects were promising, Gates anticipated short-term disappointment as content companies struggled to monetize through advertising or subscriptions. He believed interactive advertising would eventually work, since ads only needed to attract attention and could be measured through user engagement.
Those who succeeded, he concluded, would push the Internet forward as a marketplace of ideas, experiences, and products—a true marketplace of content.
How Content Actually Evolved
Today, we clearly see how content has evolved.
Content is how people discover you.
It’s how attention flows.
It’s how ideas spread.
Content is leverage.
It works while you sleep.
However, content alone is not sufficient.
When anyone can publish content, the challenge becomes trust. How do we know which voices are authentic? Trust is not automatic on the internet—it takes time, consistency, and effort to build a credible online brand.
The Rise of Social Media and Community
This began to change with the advent of social media.
From roughly 2003 to 2011, platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube enabled people to connect with each other and evaluate one another’s content. Social proof emerged. Comments, shares, and followers became signals of credibility.
Creators who consistently produced high-quality content began to stand out and thrive. This shift laid the foundation for the creator economy—yet another outcome Bill Gates had effectively predicted in 1996.
Alongside content, interest-based communities started forming. People gathered around shared ideas, creators, and niches. Trust was no longer built in isolation—it was built socially.
Commerce: Making It Sustainable
But a fundamental question remained:
How do creators get paid? Where does the money come from?
That’s where commerce became essential.
Between 2011 and 2017, the rise of e-commerce and online marketplaces transformed the internet. Commerce made digital efforts tangible and sustainable.
When someone pays—even a small amount—it changes the relationship.
They’re invested.
You’re accountable.
Commerce turns exploration into responsibility.
It forces clarity.
And most importantly, it gives builders the space to keep going.
The Internet Flywheel
This is how the system truly works:
- Content brings people in
- Community builds trust
- Commerce creates sustainability
- Sustainability enables better content
This flywheel is what powers long-term success on the internet. (Ref. hubspot flywheel)
The Next Revolution: AI and What Comes After
Now, another revolution is underway.
With AI dramatically lowering the barrier to content creation—and companies like Meta promoting AI-generated content—the internet is about to be flooded with more content than ever before.
As content becomes increasingly abundant, attention alone will lose value.
Which means community and commerce become even more important.
Trust, belonging, and value exchange—not just content—will define who wins next.
Just because AI can answer almost anything does not mean content creators will lose value. It simply means creators will need to create more meaningful content.
People won’t follow you for information anymore.
They’ll follow you for perspective, opinion, and advice.
Purely informational websites—such as product listing platforms or comparison sites like GSMArena—will struggle to thrive. AI can now generate detailed comparison tables in seconds. When information becomes abundant and instantaneous, its value drops.
What increases in value instead is human judgment.
This is where influencers and individual content creators will thrive. They provide context, experience, and perspective. And with AI tools at their disposal, creators can produce content faster, go deeper, and create significantly more value—for themselves, their communities, and the companies they collaborate with.
As a result, the creator economy isn’t shrinking—it’s expanding.
How Commerce Changes in an AI-First World
Now let’s talk about commerce.
Just because anyone can build software or an application with AI does not mean enterprise companies will lose their value. Quite the opposite.
Large organizations will now spend less time on basic execution and more time solving real-world, complex problems. With the cost of building software dramatically reduced, their focus will shift toward:
- Strategy
- Scale
- Trust
- Long-term impact
The companies that lean into this shift will play an even bigger role in shaping the future of humanity.
At the same time, the app economy built purely on API or UI wrappers will slowly fade. Products that add little differentiated value beyond a thin interface will struggle to survive.
What remains strong is the 3C flywheel—Content, Community, and Commerce—which now operates at an even faster pace of value creation.
Why I’m Writing This
I’m writing all of this to make one core point:
Community is the natural progression of content.
And that belief is why I’m launching My App Stack—a community-driven knowledge-sharing platform focused on the applications we use daily.
What this means, how it will work – Nothing figured out yet. I will write as I figure out.