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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

#111

Post by ForrestN »

Hi,

Especially given Matt's recent experience getting caught up in a #metoo whirlwind, how do you think about creating a new business in publishing with two white cis male founders and a marquee journalist from the same background (doing a story that invokes the race of a non-white person in its title no less?) Do you think that the struggles of SV/VC culture to accomplish its stated goals in the area of diversity pose a particular challenge to a startup focused on publishing?

Thanks for your time, and best of luck! Forrest

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#112

Post by tptacek »

sincerely wrote: post #106
rayiner wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing an errant tweet to Taibbi’s ouvre of misogynist dreck is pretty shameless apologism. > fell from grace this October after controversial passages from an old book he’d co-authored, The eXile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia, resurfaced and were spread online. God forbid we judge someone based on a book they published (oh, and the magazine it was based on).

Well, after the introduction, the article is a detailed explanation of how his work was actually a satire of a specific culture of misogyny. Was Jonathan Swift an advocate for cannibalism in your eyes as well?

Consider Googling for "the rule of goats".

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#113

Post by internet_jockey »

ilamont wrote: post #107

Have you been in contact with any of the independent publications that were dumped by Medium last month (see https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/medium-publication.php )? They really harmed a lot of indie publishers doing good work. Your product might be a good fit.

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, we've given a lot of thought to that.

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#115

Post by jairajs89 »

ForrestN wrote: post #111

Hi, Especially given Matt's recent experience getting caught up in a #metoo whirlwind, how do you think about creating a new business in publishing with two white cis male founders and a marquee journalist from the same background (doing a story that invokes the race of a non-white person in its title no less?) Do you think that the struggles of SV/VC culture to accomplish its stated goals in the area of diversity po…

Very not-white third founder from Substack checking in (North Indian, born and raised in Japan)

To address the question, one of the main benefits of our model (removing advertising from the equation) is that communities aren't incentivized to expose themselves to as many eyeballs as possible

From that lens, you can see how not trying to maximize eyeballs/clicks can be great for diversity. It's totally fine for them to find the people who care deeply about the community's purpose without being watered down by the outside majority. To me that allows all sorts of unique communities to emerge and be financially supported in a way that ensures their survival

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#116

Post by slikts »

cjbest wrote: post #27
aphextron wrote: post #15

How did you guys settle on "Substack"? I only ask because Substack is a really well known handle for one of the most prolific Node ecosystem contributors, and I feel like you guys are going to run into a lot of SEO pain dealing with that.

We subscribe to the pg take on naming. We went through a couple of options we like, and Substack was the one we could get the .com for. It's a Stack for Subscription publishing. We didn't realize about the node developer with the Twitter handle; hopefully it's different enough that it's not a pain for either of us. See http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html

So you couldn't be bothered to google for the name? It's not just their Twitter handle; they've published some of the most popular npm packages of all time under it; there's who knows how many millions of users.

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#117

Post by mirimir »

cjbest wrote: post #102
agaruccio wrote: post #100

Why did Substack choose the subscription model? Have you considered the micropayment model instead? Personally, I would much rather pay a small fee for each article I read (provided you remove all the barriers to payment) rather than pay a monthly subscription. I'm curious about the pros and cons of each option

I think micropayments don't work. Even if you make payment as completely frictionless as possible, there is still the mental overhead of deciding to pay. As the dollar amount gets smaller and smaller, the "pain of deciding to pay" becomes a higher fraction of the total pain, and the economics don't make sense. Plus, if you just charge for each click or whatever, you get the bad incentives of clickbait back. Subscript…

Those are excellent arguments. That's how I read fiction. Whenever an author I like publishes a book, I buy it.

But that's not how I read journalism. Many years ago, I subscribed to the local paper, The NY Times, and a few magazines. Now I browse forums and Google stuff.

I like many writers. So many that I can't imagine committing $x per week to each of them. As you say, paying per article leads to clickbait. But somehow, I'd like more flexible access to multiple writers.

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#118

Post by sincerely »

tptacek wrote: post #112
sincerely wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, after the introduction, the article is a detailed explanation of how his work was actually a satire of a specific culture of misogyny. Was Jonathan Swift an advocate for cannibalism in your eyes as well?

Consider Googling for "the rule of goats".

Haha, that's a pretty funny line , I haven't seen that before.

However if it's a representation of a hardline anti-irony/satire stance we will have to agree to disagree there. I'm all for holding accountable people whose bad behavior has gone ignored in the past but I don't think that extends to what is (to me and many others) purely artistic expression.

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#119

Post by slikts »

cjbest wrote: post #27
aphextron wrote: post #15

How did you guys settle on "Substack"? I only ask because Substack is a really well known handle for one of the most prolific Node ecosystem contributors, and I feel like you guys are going to run into a lot of SEO pain dealing with that.

We subscribe to the pg take on naming. We went through a couple of options we like, and Substack was the one we could get the .com for. It's a Stack for Subscription publishing. We didn't realize about the node developer with the Twitter handle; hopefully it's different enough that it's not a pain for either of us. See http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html

Or is it that you googled and decided you can just take over someone's identity because they haven't registered a .com. It's not like "substack" would be a thing outside of it.

Re: AMA with Substack and Matt Taibbi about a new business model for journalism

#120

Post by [deleted] »

gyrgtyn wrote: post #98
aphextron wrote: post #15

How did you guys settle on "Substack"? I only ask because Substack is a really well known handle for one of the most prolific Node ecosystem contributors, and I feel like you guys are going to run into a lot of SEO pain dealing with that.

I got excited I was about to read an AMA with substack.

[deleted]
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