The Vision Behind Content Nation: A Conversation with Founder Sascha Nitsch

Sascha Nitsch did not set out to build a media company. He set out to publish his own work without selling his readers to advertisers. He found that he couldn't. Not on the platforms that existed. Not without a trade-off that felt like a betrayal of what publishing is supposed to be.

Today, publishing online has become inseparable from surveillance, data collection, and the quiet erosion of editorial independence.

Nitsch is building in the opposite direction. No advertising, data harvesting, or algorithm deciding whose voice travels furthest. Just writers, readers, and the work between them.

We sat down with him to understand what it takes to build an independent platform in 2026, why he believes the commercialised web is a problem worth solving, and his vision for the future of online publishing.

When did you start Content Nation?  

Sascha Nitsch:

I had the idea somewhere around 2000. But the issue back then was that there was no monetisation option. The only way to get money was with ads. I had this on other sites where I had something like 5000 views a day and ran something like 20 euros a month.  It wasn't scalable, then around 2018/19, platforms like Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and others popped up, and I saw people were willing to donate money, so I thought this could be the final option to monetize it somehow, so I started it.

What inspired you to start Content Nation? 

Sascha Nitsch:

I started it because I wanted to publish my own work. I was running a site where I wrote myself, had ads on it, and it didn't make any money despite having readers. I realized this was something other people needed too, so I tried to combine it with features from social media and crowdfunding to have an income besides the ads itself.

Why is this personally important to you? Did you find gaps in other platforms that you wanted to create for yourself, or why is the mission of Content Nation personally important to you?

Sascha Nitsch:

Most of the other platforms are selling my data, and I didn't want to do it. If someone has to earn money, it should be me, not someone else.

What makes Content Nation different from traditional content publishing platforms and social media networks out there? 

Sascha Nitsch: 

It's not tracking you, it's not selling your data, it's not advertising to you, it's none of the things that annoy people on the modern internet. Think of it as closer to the internet from the 90s or early 2000s, and not the modern commercialised systems like Facebook today.

What makes Content Nation stand out in terms of community of readers, or is there something that you have currently, or you are looking to maybe build in the future, when it comes to creating a community for creators themselves and amongst their readers?

Sascha Nitsch: 

Right now, I'm enabling access to multiple decentralized systems, for example, Matrix for chat, which is decentralized, meaning you can create an account on thousands of servers and can join it even if you don't have an account on the platform itself.  Similarly, through the Fediverse, you can follow creators on the platform using an account you already have elsewhere. You can engage directly on Content Nation, but you don’t have to.

Which feature or capability are you most proud of, and why?

Sascha Nitsch: 

Good question. Right now, the extra services like the transcription or the possibility that you can upload a video or audio, and it creates an article for you.

This is something I haven't seen on other platforms, as well as openness, to not close down everything, but to keep it open. All platforms I've seen are closing things, piece by piece. For example, Medium has moved more and more content behind a subscription.

So it started with public articles, but it's closing down the classical version.

By closing it down, the creator gets to earn from that, right, versus just making it free? 

Sascha Nitsch: 

I think you can get part of it, but most is for the platform.

Based on this, how would you communicate to creators as well as readers about the benefits of Content Nation? If you were to give a speech highlighting the unique selling points and why they should also check out your platform, what would you say? 

Sascha Nitsch: 

It depends on the audience. Some are probably more interested in the privacy aspect, some on the openness to read all content, some may be interested in special niche features, depends a bit on the audience, for example, I have very sophisticated algorithms in the back end for the recommendation engine, so if it's a talk about data science, then this would be my expertise, but the person who wants to write about the hobby they have, they don't care about that, it just has to work.

What would you say has been like as a founder, some of the biggest challenges and perhaps lessons that you've faced and learned along the way of building Content Nation? 

Sascha Nitsch: 

Never underestimate the legal stuff, especially in Germany. It's not just about technology; it's about getting it in a state where it's legal.

There are two parts to building a platform: one is the technology. This was quite easy compared to the legal part. Then, figuring out what to do to make the platform legally compliant, to collect money, and so on. I spent more time on this than on programming the platform.

Were there moments that you doubted if Content Nation would be successful, or if it was necessary? Did you have moments of doubt? 

Sascha Nitsch: 

Basically, every day.

But I still believe it has the potential. I haven't seen anything quite like it

yet. Parts of what Content Nation does are available as individual platforms, and some of those are successful. But the combination I haven't seen it yet.

What impact do you hope the platform has on the future of content creation and content publishing?

Sascha Nitsch: 

I hope it contributes to a shift away from the big platforms, back toward a more distributed web, smaller platforms, where not everything is concentrated on five big tech companies.

What can creators and new members look forward to over the next year? 

Sascha Nitsch: 

To hopefully create communities and make themselves better known, or have an easy-to-access community. Right now, many people use closed platforms like Discord for accessing information, and those are becoming more and more hostile,

So I hope they can look to my platform as a more open alternative.

Are there any major features coming in the near future?  

Sascha Nitsch: 

To be honest, there is nothing really big in the pipeline right now. I'm doing mostly tiny improvements, like redesigning a bit here, modifying a bit there, because I still have the writer issue. If there is a popular writer and the person is requesting something that might be useful, then it might be the next big thing, but I don't know yet what this feature will be.

Okay. Alright. Thank you so much, Sascha! Looking forward to what's next for Content Nation.