You trust the news source you read. You don't trust "the media." Don Templeman spent six and a half years in finance before he left to work out why those two feelings sit side by side, and his answer is less about journalists than about who pays them and how. In Part I of our conversation, trust turns up somewhere most people never look: the plumbing that moves a reader's subscription dollars to a writer.
The idea for Aemula started in 2016, when Ethereum had just launched, but the network needed to be about a million times cheaper before it could work. Don explains audience capture, what he means when he says trust was sold to advertisers, and makes the case for a subscription model where payment is shared across many independent writers.
The paired essay, “Trust Follows the Power You Give Away”, can be found here: https://www.sparkoftrust.com/p/trust-follows-the-power-you-give-away
Disclosure: Keiron connected the Spark of Trust publication to Aemula, so the paired essay is also syndicated on Don's platform. He has been an informal advisor to Don, one founder to another.
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 - Audience Capture Explained
00:32 - Spark of Trust Introduction
00:55 - Meet Don Templeman
03:34 - 2016 Origins and Media Polarization
06:39 - Why Web3 Was Too Early
07:49 - Ethereum Breakthrough Timeline
11:13 - Quitting Finance for Aemula
15:34 - Finance Meets Information Bias
20:37 - How Media Trust Broke
26:20 - Web3 Reputation and Transparency
27:32 - Trust Sold to Advertisers
30:54 - From Cronkite to Algorithms
34:45 - Centralized vs Decentralized Future
35:58 - Trustworthy Journalism Reimagined
36:59 - What Aemula Is Building
37:58 - Newsroom Tools Without Owners
41:11 - Why Decentralization Matters
47:44 - Substack Limits and Aemula Model
52:43 - Reader Experience and Discovery
57:24 - Web3 Skepticism and Censorship
01:05:17 - Dollars In Dollars Out Payments
01:09:34 - Regulation and Building the Rails
01:12:05 - Sign off
Aemula: https://aemula.com/
Don Templeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-templeman/
Reach Keiron directly: keiron@sparkoftrust.com
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