Why stable user relationships are now the key advantage

In today’s media landscape, attention is everywhere—but genuine trust is rare. Personal brands work and attract attention: a face, a voice, a distinctive style—these create a sense of closeness, recognition, and reach.

“The Pioneer”, for example, states this quite openly as a strategy: successful media offerings need “recognisable faces”.

However, reach does not equal a relationship. And it is relationships that publishers really need—especially when platforms change the rules of the game, AI-generated content becomes ubiquitous, and tomorrow the timeline may be reordered yet again. In such circumstances, a** trusted media brand** doesn’t become less valuable, but more important—because it provides guidance when everything else is just noise.

Creator ecosystems generate a great deal of relevant content, but they do not automatically adhere to the journalistic standards of an editorial team. According to a global UNESCO survey, 62% of digital content creators do not “systematically” fact-check their information before sharing it. This is not meant as creator-bashing, but rather as a reminder of the structural value that media brands provide: institutional reliability, defined processes, editorial culture, and responsibility.

Personalities are the turbocharger—media brands are the engine. The best approach isn’t “either or”: make personal brands visible, but in a way that strengthens the media brand. In a complex and fast-changing media landscape, strong personalities are an asset. But those who win in the long term are the ones who turn attention into engagement—in a data-driven, product-led way, and with a paywall strategy that builds relationships rather than simply restricting access.

Stable user relationships aren’t built in the feed, but along the journey: from an unknown visitor to a returning user, to registration—and ultimately to a paying partnership. This is precisely where Upscore comes in: We combine content intelligence and usage data with a dynamic paywall that understands user behaviour, rather than deterring everyone indiscriminately.

Thomas Schmidt-Broer is Head of Sales at Upscore.