The Scholarly Kitchen: AI Isn't Going to Pay for Content — Part Two: The Path Forward (Guest Post)

We're pleased to share that the second installment of Jonathan Woahn's guest series on The Scholarly Kitchen has been published.

Building on Part One's analysis of why AI training won't become a durable revenue engine for publishers, Part Two shifts focus to where genuine economic opportunity may emerge as AI systems become operationalized.

Key Topics

The article explores:

• The Great Reallocation — How technology disruptions cause consumption and payment to fall out of sync, drawing parallels to the music industry's Napster-to-Spotify transition
• Three Emerging Economic Models — Pay-Per-Use (PPU), Bring-Your-Own-License (BYOL), and Licensing on Demand (LOD)
• Norms Worth Locking In Early — Why publishers should establish expectations around paid inference, attribution, usage transparency, and direct relationships before industry norms harden

The piece argues that "Publishing is not at the end of its economic arc; it is in the turbulent middle of a reallocation."

Read the full guest post on The Scholarly Kitchen