I can give you the exact year that the media monopoly began to
crumble.
1998.
The cause?
Matt Drudge.
Drudge created a media empire, with a single-page, ugly website, because 20 years ago today, when Newsweek refused to break the Monica Lewinsky story, this one man ran with
it.
One man stood up against the existing establishment, and smashed it good and hard.
We're told that the modern world chews up the individual and spits him out.
Wrong.
This is the age of the individual, more so than at any time in the history of the
world.
Drudge is just one example.
I'm a (much smaller) example. I have no major media outlets and no big-money donors backing me, and yet I make a comfortable living without having to say anything the guardians of acceptable opinion want me to say.
My podcast guest Leah McHenry is an independent musician
who makes a comfortable living making music -- an idea that would astonish and amaze most independent musicians doing it the old-fashioned way.
And this is an age where an individual, without a huge accumulation of capital, and with zero overheard and zero employees, can start a profitable online business.
You don't need a website, you don't need ads, you don't
need to do customer service, and you don't need to touch a lick of merchandise. This is 2018, for heaven's sake, not 1958.
The master is Steve Clayton. Talk about the age of the individual: this one guy is responsible for getting tons of people up and running with eCommerce.
Here's a PDF that lays out how it all works. Hurry up and grab it, because on Friday he's giving
away $5000 to a lucky person who has downloaded it by then:
Tom
Woods