Why every platform has become a checkout line (and what marketers need to do about it)

Remember when YouTube was for cat videos and not cart checkouts?

When Pinterest was for dream weddings, not drop-shipping? And when TikTok was for chaotic dance trends instead of “girlies, you need this serum”?

When I wrote the internet is a mall back in April, I was mostly talking about ownership: how creators and brands are basically renting space in someone else’s shiny digital shopping centre. I remember writing something like “own your audience or get priced out.” What I didn’t realise then was just how literal that metaphor would become.

Because now, every platform is a mall. No, not figuratively. Literally.

TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitch. One by one, they’ve all rolled out in-app shopping. YouTube’s 2025 Culture and Trends report is basically a soft-focus ad for creator commerce. Twitch has integrated merch sales into live streams. Pinterest has turned its inspo boards into storefronts. Even on freaking ChatGPT, shopping tools are quietly being woven in.

I fear this is about more than just monetisation. To me, it seems like a slow, subtle shift in what the internet is for.

It used to be a place for curiosity. Now it’s a place for conversion. And the algorithms don’t care if you’re entertained, inspired, or having fun… they just want you to buy. It’s frictionless by design: see it, want it, get it. What was once a process of discovery is now merely a transaction. The dopamine hit of learning or connecting replaced by the checkout ding.

Buy buy buy. It’s efficient, yes. But it’s also hollow AF.

And this hollowing out is happening at the same time AI slop is flooding every feed.

Over 50% of online content is now machine generated. Synthetic reviews, automated articles, AI-generated influencers. We’re living in an uncanny valley of engagement—endless content, no substance. A perfect storm of commerce and automation where the “social” part of social media has quietly died.

People love to criticise the dead internet theory, and I get it. But for the first time since its conception, much of the internet genuinely doesn’t feel human anymore. It feels like a pop-up store that never closes in a city that never sleeps.

This is also a problem for marketers.

Because while platforms are chasing conversions, audiences are craving something real.

They’re allergic to salesy, they scroll past perfect, they can see automation from a freaking mile away. In a landscape where everyone’s shouting “buy now,” the only thing that actually cuts through is a whisper that sounds human.

So then, how do we adapt without becoming part of the sludge?

1. Stop feeding the machine

Yeah obviously use the tools, test in-app shopping if it makes sense, but don’t let the platform’s sales logic define your brand’s creative logic. The algorithm doesn’t love you, baby. It just rents your reach.

2. Bring back friction

The more seamless the shopping journey, the less meaningful it becomes. A teeny bit of friction: humour, weirdness, honesty, slowness, is what makes content stick. Dare I say, friction is the new authenticity?

3. Build your owned spaces

Your newsletter, your site, your community, that’s the real asset. It’s the difference between being a pop-up stall in someone else’s mall and owning the building.

4. Lead with story, not sell

Robert Herjavec once said “good salespeople sell features, great salespeople sell outcomes, and really great salespeople sell feelings."

You know this. The future of marketing isn’t the flashiest product tag—it’s storytelling that reminds people there’s a human behind the account (did we mention we’re running a workshop on this exact idea next week?).

The irony is that in a world built entirely to sell, the only thing that still sells is being human.

We’ve gone from connection to conversion, from discovery to delivery, from people to products. We’re too far gone to reverse it completely. But we can choose to make the spaces we control feel like a conversation again, not a transaction.

The internet might be a mall. But that doesn’t mean your brand has to act like a store.

-Sophie Randell, Writer