Interesting project! I'm wondering: does Substack have a proposal to put editors into this new workflow? Editing seems like an essential part of the process of good journalism or any kind of writing that would be missing in this model.
AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism
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Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing I'd add to this: the algorithm actually selects for stuff you agree with or hate. So sometimes instead of an echo chamber you get a war chamber, which I'm not sure is better. We think that people should choose what they read. Stepping back and thinking about what you want to subscribe to -- instead of doing one more scroll -- helps.
>So sometimes instead of an echo chamber you get a war chamber, which I'm not sure is better. I think the "war chamber" basically reinforces the echo chamber. You never see the reasonable people within the camps you hate, you only ever see the most ridiculous, most absurd shit the internet has to offer that inhabits that camp. I noticed this a lot during the whole GamerGate thing. It's like those people had just been…
Exactly. This is an emergent consequence of 1) prioritizing "engagement" and 2) the mechanics of "retweet with comment"
This can happen on social media even if almost everybody would prefer that it didn't. The way to fix it is to change the rules :)
Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism
#73Have you considered having a Kindle edition periodical? Frankly I find it much more comfortable to read long pieces on my Kindle than on my computer or on a phone or tablet.
Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism
#74I'm guessing substack is a high volume email sender, do you guys use an API or in-house tech for that? Any interesting stories about keeping your mail out of spam filters/your IPs off blacklists/Nigerian princes from starting newsletters?
We are, and it is an interesting problem!
I don't want to get too deep into the details here other than to say at a product level we're focused on being respectful with the access we get to people's inboxes. We hate junk mail as much as everybody else, and being good citizens is necessary (but not sufficient) to deliver lots of email.
Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism
#75Hi Matt, this is something that has interested me for personal and professional reasons. I've see a range of solutions from podcasting, youtube channels, self publishing, patreon, and independent companies (thinking TPM and their subscription model). It seems like a lot of the problem is the ad based revenue model, and the absolute bottom falling out text ad pricing combined with the unsuitability of video format to deeper/long form journalism. So I am happy for this. But as someone here noted, discoverability seems weak and - more generally - media benefits from networking effects. To not go on too long:
1. Presuming you buy into the networking argument, is Substack going to do any curation to ensure that the "Matt Taibbi" brand isn't hurt by "random crank pushing chemtrail mind control" content on the same site? That may be a bit extreme, but the same general phenomenon as FBA 3rd party seller counterfeiting hurting all sellers there or how Forbes blogs have gone downhill.
2. Is Substack going to enable cross-publishing to push content to other destinations/media? It's seems like it will be impossible to acquire the same number of eyeballs that is possible on ITunes, et al for audience acquisition.
Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism
#76Thanks for doing this.
So, why newsletters? Why not RSS?
Clearly Axios and others are showing that email is better. Why do you think this is? How do you think this will develop in future?
Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism
#77[deleted]
Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism
#78Matt, What is your take on how Journalism might be some sort of Platform Cooperative (https://platform.coop/), where leadership is subject to the user community - either subscribers, journalists, or both. Even non-profits can be a problem in this regard if the board of directors is locked. Should Journalism focus on maximizing investor return?
Would Substack think that perhaps they could get investor "exit" to a community of journalists or subscribers rather than to Google or Facebook buyout? For example, https://www.stocksy.com/ In this model, investors might sell to a cooperative structure and get a note payable from a percentage of net revenue.
Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism
#79Not the kind of trash I want to see on HN: https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_59f7...
> On October 27, Aimee Levitt published a piece in The Chicago Reader with the apt title “Twenty years ago, in Moscow, Matt Taibbi was a misogynist asshole—and possible worse.” Taibbi and Mark Ames were co-editors of the the English language gonzo, semi-satirical, semi-muckraking expat newspaper the eXile, where they engaged in sophomoric pranks, non-stop partying, and, if their own words are to believed, constant sexual harassment.
Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism
#80As someone who reads a lot of serialized content with a wide range of professionalism, what guards are in place to protect users from an author dropping a serialized work that is supposed to have a clear end prior to that end being reached?
That is, if I'm reading a book in serialized form from Matt Taibbi (as an example) that I feel invested in the outcome (in this case both figuratively and literally), and Matt decides he's got better things to do 80% the way through the book, what's to keep him or any other author from walking away at that point?
As a consumer, it's bad enough when I'm left in this situation when there's been no money exchanged (such as a series cancelled with the plot mostly unresolved). If I've actually been partially responsible for the funding to that point, I will not be a happy person if that happens.
In what says does Substack incentivize authors to complete serialized work like this, or at least leave it in a state that is somewhat appropriate?