In the Age of AI, Is It Still Worth Paying for Content?

GM,

Happy New Year 2026. Blocktrend’s publishing calendar for the year is out. Over the coming year, Blocktrend plans to take 14 days off and has set aside 5 days for sick or personal leave. The only variable is that I’m still hesitating whether to fly to Mumbai, India, in early November to attend Devcon—the Ethereum developers conference—in person to “recharge my faith.” India is especially tempting because it’s affordable and the food is great; the biggest downside is having to wear earplugs outside to drown out the constant honking 😂

If I do decide to take time off, I’ll announce it at the beginning of the article in advance. I also invite you to fill out the 2025 content satisfaction survey to help Blocktrend do better. Now, let’s get to the main topic.

While putting together this year’s publishing schedule, I felt a strange inner contradiction. On one hand, I felt a bit weak—how could I possibly need 14 days off in a year? After all, generative AI can write articles now; in theory, publishing one every day shouldn’t be that hard. But on second thought, I realized that “being able to take breaks” is actually Blocktrend’s greatest value.

Over the past few days, I read Instagram head Adam Mosseri’s observations about the content landscape in 2026, and they further confirmed this intuition. He believes the next major content trend is that “perfection is dead.” I’ve already printed those four words out and taped them in front of my desk as a constant reminder: authenticity matters more than perfection.

Perfection Is Dead

At 42, Adam Mosseri is a senior executive at Meta. Earlier in his career, he was responsible for Facebook’s core News Feed ranking system, using algorithms to shape how billions of people around the world consume information.

Since taking over Instagram in 2018, Adam has gradually shifted the platform’s focus from simple photo sharing toward short-form video and creator-driven content. Threads—now one of the most popular apps in Taiwan—was also spearheaded by him. In other words, much of what we see on these platforms reflects, to some extent, what he believes is “worth being seen.”

Adam made a startling remark on the very first day of 2026, claiming that camera companies around the world have all been heading in the wrong direction. In the future, the core competitive advantage of content creators will no longer be the pursuit of perfection, because people will begin to value the authenticity that imperfection represents:

A major shift in 2026 is that “authenticity” is becoming infinitely reproducible… As deepfake technology continues to mature, people can no longer tell which audio and video content is AI-generated… Authenticity is turning into a scarce resource… Camera companies have taken the wrong path. They are competing to make everyone look like a professional photographer from 2015. But in a world where AI can generate perfect images, a flawless appearance becomes a telltale flaw. People want real content… In a world where everything can be beautified, imperfection becomes a signal. It’s like saying, “This is real, because it’s imperfect.”

“Blocktrend is all written personally by Hsu Ming-En, because he actually takes days off—and there are even typos in the articles!”

Saying this at the beginning of 2026 still sounds a bit absurd. But I believe that as AI grows ever more powerful, we will eventually reach this stage—one in which people deliberately present themselves as imperfect in order to signal authenticity. In the future, there may even be blogs generated entirely by AI that solemnly publish editorial calendars, intentionally letting the bots “take a few days off” to create a sense of humanity.

Adam goes even further, boldly predicting that when AI can replicate even “imperfection,” people will ultimately realize that looking at content alone is no longer enough to judge what is real. Instead, we will have to identify who is speaking behind it. Formal flaws like occasionally taking time off are easy to imitate; truly authentic content must embed “imperfection” directly into the act of creation itself. This is also the direction Blocktrend is striving toward in 2026, which I summarize into three major themes: locality, stories, and the human body.

Local Roots, Stories, and the Human Body

Do you follow crypto media?

Many media operators are struggling with the problem of “hollowed-out content.” Open their websites and you’ll often find more sponsored press releases than actual reporting. Content that truly starts from local contexts and offers original perspectives is extremely rare. Media content is only the surface; the deeper reason is that the industry itself has not yet developed to a stage capable of supporting sustained original reporting. Blocktrend is very fortunate to have paying members like you supporting us, giving us the freedom to make different choices—choosing to invest our energy in content that can accumulate long-term value.

Local Connections

First, articles will place greater emphasis on local connections.

AI can already explain complex concepts and is often better than me at “speaking human,” but it cannot describe lived experience the way a real person can. Without Ukrainians personally recounting how they used cryptocurrencies to flee during the war, no matter how good AI is at fabrication, it could never capture that sense of urgency.

The ways cryptocurrencies are used also differ drastically from country to country. Americans don’t understand why Argentinians need crypto to fight inflation, nor why people in Taiwan use stablecoins to fund overseas brokerages to buy U.S. stocks. Conversely, when Taiwanese readers see news about PayPal or Stripe supporting crypto, they often feel nothing—because that simply isn’t part of our daily lives.

In 2026, I hope to uncover more use cases that resonate with people in Taiwan, using local stories to connect technological developments, and to become a creator who can articulate the “Taiwan experience.”

Business Stories

Second, the podcast will place greater emphasis on business stories.

AI can generate detailed research reports, but it struggles to tell a truly compelling story: why did a company’s founder choose this path in the first place, and how did the company make its way, step by step, to where it is today?

When I first started recording the podcast in 2018, my biggest dream was to interview heavyweight guests. Back then, Blocktrend was still unknown, and just getting guests required real effort. Now, I no longer feel the need to prove myself that way. Instead, I care more about the products and companies we use every day—what choices they once made, and what costs they paid along the way.

Stories move people because they resonate with lived experience. Of course, AI can generate podcasts too, but without real-life experience, it’s hard to tell stories that truly touch listeners. I hope this kind of content will remain valuable even when you listen to it again three years from now.

Participation

Finally, there’s in-person workshops.

Over the past eight years, I’ve been invited to give talks at the Financial Supervisory Commission, the central bank, law enforcement agencies, and major corporations—more than a hundred sessions in total, reaching nearly ten thousand attendees. After every session, I hand out feedback surveys and continuously refine the content based on the responses. In recent years, more and more people have left comments like, “Teacher, when is your next talk?” Yet all this time, I’ve never really had a home ground of my own.

Most in-person courses on the market are ultimately about getting you to use a referral code, become an exchange user, or join a fee-rebate affiliate scheme. My workshops are meant to serve professionals who are just beginning to explore blockchain and cryptocurrencies, but can’t find a clear entry point to truly understand them.

That’s why I plan to host my very first full-day, in-person workshop on Friday, March 6, at the GIS NTU Convention Center. I chose a weekday because the target audience for this course consists of people who need to upskill during workdays and have rigid, practical needs related to industry applications. Over the course of a full day, I’ll guide you step by step, hands-on, to understand how cryptocurrencies are actually used in practice.

The reason I set “local, stories, and the body” as Blocktrend’s three main pillars for 2026 is ultimately to answer one question: In the age of AI, is it still worth paying for content? I believe that content alone will become increasingly insufficient—unless someone is willing to take responsibility for it.

2025 Content Satisfaction Survey

Of course, Blocktrend also uses AI in the content production process. But you’ll never see that familiar line at the bottom of our articles: “This content may contain errors; please verify on your own.” Don’t get me wrong—it’s not because Blocktrend never makes mistakes. It’s because if there is an error, that responsibility is mine, not yours.

That Hsu Ming-En takes responsibility for the content is the ultimate value that AI cannot replace. And precisely for that reason, I’d like to invite you to fill out the Blocktrend 2025 Content Satisfaction Survey 😂

Every year, I use this survey to understand who is reading Blocktrend and to review whether our content topics truly align with readers’ needs. I read every piece of feedback carefully, and I also compile the results into a podcast episode to share with everyone. Your feedback helps sustain this long-term, stable subscription relationship—and allows me to continue creating content that is authentic and worthy of your trust.