Issue #42 - January 6th, 2026
Written by Michael Gillespie
In this issue:
Perspective: The creator and subscription economies have matured - and the old playbooks are quietly breaking.
Insight: Membership only thrives when it becomes the core business, not just a monetization strategy.
Outlook: 2026 will belong to operators willing to organize their business around stewardship, not momentary wins.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Membership doesn’t work as a side project. It works when it becomes the system.”
Welcome back.
I want to start this year by saying something plainly - something I think many operators have probably felt for a while but don’t always say out loud…
The era of easy growth is over.
And with it, so is the era of treating membership as an add-on.
No, this isn’t a warning. It’s an acknowledgment.
The creator economy hasn’t collapsed and the subscription economy hasn’t stalled.
They’ve matured.
And maturity has a way of exposing which structures were built to last and which ones were built to ride a wave.
We need to talk about that shift, because pretending it isn’t happening will get in the way of building something durable this year.
Let’s dive in.
PERSPECTIVE
When Membership Lives on the Periphery.
For a long time, membership worked as an extension…
An add-on at the end of a funnel. A way to monetize attention generated elsewhere.
And for a while, that was enough.
But when membership sits on the edge of the business - downstream from content, launches, or algorithms - it inherits all their volatility.
When attention dips, membership feels fragile. When energy scatters, delivery suffers. When priorities shift, members feel it immediately.
Most of the frustration operators feel right now isn’t because membership “doesn’t work.”
It’s because it’s been asked to succeed without being allowed to lead.
When membership isn’t the core, it’s always reacting.
And memberships that are forced to react to other parts of the businesses they’re attached to can never be durable.
INSIGHT
Membership as the Operating System.
Here’s the shift I truly believe we’re entering - and I think it defines the next chapter of recurring revenue:
Membership can no longer be treated as a monetization strategy.
It has to become the operating system.
That means a few important things:
Membership sets the rhythm.
It defines how often you show up, what you prioritize, and where your energy goes. Content, community, and communication orbit around it - not the other way around.Membership clarifies what matters.
When it’s central, decisions get simpler. What serves members stays. What distracts from them goes. That clarity is a competitive advantage in a noisy market.Membership rewards stewardship, not spectacle.
The strongest programs aren’t built on constant novelty. They’re built on consistency, trust, and care delivered over time.Membership exposes weak foundations quickly.
If systems are unclear, expectations are fuzzy, or delivery relies on bursts of effort, membership makes that visible. That’s not a flaw…it’s feedback that’s immediately clear.
Last year, I noticed something important among the memberships that outperformed their peers:
When operators of those memberships organized their business around membership instead of around attention, everything changed:
Their pace became sustainable, their value became clearer and their growth became something that compounded quietly.
This isn’t theory. It’s what I watched happen repeatedly.
If your membership isn’t the heartbeat of your pursuit, you’ll be working twice as hard for half the results.
OUTLOOK
The New Normal.
I think 2026 will reward a different kind of operator.
Not the loudest. Not the fastest. Not the most reactive.
But the ones willing to say:
“This is the business. Let’s build it properly.”
Treating membership as the core isn’t restrictive…it’s stabilizing. It gives structure to creativity, direction to effort, and meaning to growth.
It turns a collection of tactics into a coherent system.
This shift needs to be acknowledged in order to navigate the new normal when it comes to the subscription economy.
Membership isn’t an add-on anymore.
It’s the work.
And for operators willing to embrace that reality, this next chapter isn’t something to fear…it’s where real businesses finally get built.
Think about it.