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F-R-E-E: A Four-Letter Word That Warps Our Brains
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Entertainment Strategy Guy

F-R-E-E: A Four-Letter Word That Warps Our Brains

MrBeast vs. Super Bowl, Millie Bobby Brown vs. Taylor: How entertainment comparisons collapse under pressure

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Entertainment Strategy Guy
May 16, 2024
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F-R-E-E: A Four-Letter Word That Warps Our Brains
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BANK SHOT MrBeast’s deal with Amazon Studios is said to be worth up to $100 million. (Photo illustration by The Ankler)

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The Entertainment Strategy Guy writes for The Ankler every two weeks. Subscribe to his standalone newsletter to unlock access to all of his weekly streaming ratings reports,

Over the weekend, I stood in line for nearly 90 minutes . . . to get into a comic book shop.

That’s right! For one day, physical comic books were in high demand. Dozens of us waited in line at a random store in Los Angeles to get some.

“What?” you may be thinking, “Comic books are popular again?” Well, it was “free comic book day.” At the turn of the century, one store decided to drive interest by giving away some of its product, one day a year. This then became an annual tradition — read: marketing opportunity — for shops across the country. (Well, those that still exist.) So I turned up with my family in tow to get my free comic book, and not incidentally, buy some other stuff too.

The point of this story for us is this: Comic books themselves didn’t get more popular; they got cheaper.

When something is free, customers consume more of it. Although this insight seems obvious, countless creatives, pundits and reporters do not appear to understand this basic point.

This was especially true from 2019-2022. In fact, the entire history of the Streaming Wars is basically, “Customers consume more of something the cheaper it is.” Yet people keep making that mistake when discussing the entertainment business and strategy. In particular, I keep seeing media comparisons between free or practically free digital items and much more expensive physical items. As I always try to point out, skewed media coverage invariably leads to worse business decisions (for example, signing social media stars to big TV deals).

So that’s what I’m setting out to correct today. In today’s article you’ll learn:

  • Why “the law of demand” means that free appears better than not free

  • The better metric to use than “popularity”

  • Why Barbie is bigger than Rebel Moon

  • Why Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is bigger than Damsel

  • Just how valuable the YouTube star MrBeast is

  • Why the Super Bowl still rules all

  • How tech innovation is often just undercutting prices

  • The even cheaper alternative to streamers that may cause the next round of entertainment disruption

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