The Customer in a World of Ubiquity

The Hotpot | December 2025 | By Lisanne

23.12

When budding creators start thinking, “How can I guide people through a sales funnel?”, they’ll likely run into trouble.

In a world where ideas are cheap to copy and distribution is essentially free, you can’t rely on the old playbook. Especially if you’re banking on scarcity.

This is because the digital world has no friction whatsoever. You can’t price your knowledge based on the number of copies you haven’t sold.

When you design a funnel, you are trying to enforce an old-world business model based on scarcity onto a new-world medium that runs on ubiquity. This puts you into a fight with the nature of the internet, making it hard to charge high prices and actively preventing your ideas from spreading. You get into trouble because your strategy and the medium are in direct conflict.

And yes—there are creators who use paywalls well. But they succeed because the trust already exists. The paywall is a later-stage tool, a way to deepen a relationship that’s already formed. It’s not the thing that creates that relationship in the first place.

The trouble begins when the order is reversed. When someone protects an idea before it’s earned its reach. When access is sold before trust has had time to grow. At that point, people aren’t buying transformation—they’re buying permission. That’s a fragile relationship.

In the pursuit of scarcity, we’ve learned that the price tag is the measure of value.

The better question is: who are you serving?

You’re serving the person whose conversation you want to change. The person who needs your insights, your perspective, your unique perspective, amplified.

In a world of ubiquitous ideas, the strategy of the budding creator shouldn’t be scarce. It should be ubiquity. Don’t hide your best ideas. Give them away. Don’t worry about the $59 download. Worry about the thousands of conversations it will spark. Don’t measure your value in downloads. Measure it in impact.

When you choose to be the signal in the noise—when you say things that are truly worth saying and make it easy for people to hear them—money stops being a transaction and becomes a byproduct. The money will come naturally, because you’ve provided the change.

So be the leader of the movement.

The next step: What’s the absolute best idea you’re currently guarding? How can you present it to the world for free today?

Thanks for reading!

Curious to see more reflections like this? Click through to see the rest of the series on entrepreneurship. I’d love to hear what resonates with you.