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Medium CEO Ev Williams wrote Wednesday that the business model behind ad-supported media online was a “broken system.”
“It simply doesn’t serve people,” Williams wrote. “The vast majority of articles, videos, and other ‘content’ we all consume on a daily basis is paid for — directly or indirectly — by corporations who are funding it in order to advance their goals.”
“As a result, we get … well, what we get. And it’s getting worse,” he continued.
Williams was talking specifically about Medium’s business model, but don’t forget: Williams is also a co-founder, board member and the largest single shareholder at Twitter, a social network with media ambitions that makes almost all of its money from — you guessed it — ad-supported media.
If Twitter were a normal company, the fact that someone who owns 6 percent of it — and has a significant hand in managing it — is openly worried about its core business model, might freak people out.
But Twitter is Twitter, so it’s going to take more than a Medium post to make a dent these days. Twitter shares rose 2.5 percent today.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.