Followers stop following

Over the past decade (often in this annual roundup!), we’ve heard a lot about journalist-influencers and journalists who go independent through services like Patreon and Substack. But we seldom hear about the people reading these independent newsletters or listening to these podcasts or viewing journalistic social media content. My prediction is that many of these followers are going to switch up their media habits in 2025.

Let’s give it a name, even if it hasn’t happened yet (and hopefully won’t): The Great Unfollowing. It will happen across the board. Podcasts will see the number of people donating through Patreon have dropped, subscriber numbers on paid services will fall. Maybe you’ll maintain the same number of followers on social media but it will be hard to tell how many in that number are actual humans paying attention to you and your posts.

It could be the content has gone stale or repetitive, but if there’s a mass unfollowing, I don’t necessarily think it will have anything to do with quality. The reason I think it will happen is that the internet itself is now flooded with careless content, AI-generated or otherwise, and the effort to sift through it doesn’t pay off like it used to, for readers and listeners.

Where will the followers go? Good question. There are a lot of things a person can do other than read posts on social media, listen to podcasts, or read someone’s Substack. My guess it will be a Big New Digital Thing, but I’m not sure what that thing will be.

Running an independent newsletter or a podcast is often the fallback of many fallback plans for journalists. Where will these journalists go when the subscribers fall to a level that is no longer sustainable? Another good question.