81–90 of 164 posts
Thanks 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?
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.
Matt, 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 co…
What that means is that if we are successful, we get to build a sustainable company that does this important thing.
Not 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…
I also have an observation to share: Having attempted a paid newsletter before on the topic of industrial IoT using other tools (Mailchimp + Chargebee) I found that moving people from free to paid is a huge challenge. The cost to readers has several elements: the subscription cost and the time cost, because when people pay they are also making a commitment to read, which takes time out of their already extremely time-constrained days. What sort of advice do you give to newsletter creators about making this transition and convincing their free readers to sign up for the paid tiers?
Good luck with your experiment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On Substack, readers pay writers directly. The writers are independent. We take a cut of the subscription revenue, which is the same in this case as for others. We think this aligns our interest with the writers interest, the same way that the subscription model aligns the writer with the reader.
Ok, so he's not a partner or advisor or anything like that? I guess I'm just curious about the level of the endorsement you're getting here. Thanks again for answering these questions!
Not 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…
So moral purity is a requirement for notable achievement now?
Not 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…
So moral purity is a requirement for notable achievement now?
Then I saw that this is a novel, and my interest evaporated. Not because I don't read fiction, but because I don't want to read fiction that way.
Not 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…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17240003
I am amused that the typo is from "Huffington" rather than "Chicago Reader".