Something feels off in marketing, right?
Facebook, Instagram, X, etc. still work and have been absolutely optimized to the last pixel. The performance still looks familiar and consistent, but at a higher cost. But the energy is different. Engagement feels hollow. Growth feels unpredictable and/or slowing. Playbooks that used to drive results now stall out without explanation. You’re not alone in noticing it.
The internet isn’t broken. It’s reorganizing in the shadows. And we’re right in the middle of it.
We haven’t had the big “a-ha” moment yet. This isn’t a clean reset or a bold new era. It’s a weird transition. Legacy systems still exist and have a lot of value, but they’re bending under the weight of new behaviors. Distribution is shifting. Incentives are getting redefined. And trust is quietly moving away from platforms and toward people, protocols, and purpose-built networks.
If you work in marketing, content, partnerships, or growth, you’re probably already seeing the effects. But it’s hard to name the pattern when you’re living through it. That’s what I’m trying to do with SignalStack: not give answers, but document the shift while it’s still happening.
I’ve spent the last decade in marketing. Affiliate programs. Social Media. Content strategy. I’ve seen how the system works, and how it starts to break when behavior changes faster than infrastructure can adapt. Over the past year, I’ve felt that gap widen, and I started writing to make sense of it and how best to move forward in a sustainable way.
SignalStack is where I explore the mechanics behind what’s changing. Sometimes that means looking at how a new platform works. Sometimes it means unpacking a campaign that flopped. Sometimes it’s just an observation about how the same old tactics are being repackaged with new language.
Here’s what I know so far:
The algorithms are still powerful, but attention is fragmenting
Creators are becoming distribution. Communities are becoming channels
Performance isn’t just about results anymore - it’s about participation
AI is flattening everything, and that means the mechanics matter more than ever
Incentives, not ideas, are shaping behavior
This newsletter is for people who feel that shift and want to understand it — marketers who can’t rely on what used to work, creators who don’t want to burn out, builders who care more about systems than splash.
I’m not here to sell the future. I’m here to figure it out in public, one pattern at a time.
If that sounds like something you’ve been thinking about too, you’re in the right place.
Welcome to SignalStack. Let’s see where this goes.
-JP