The Guardian just advised me that their new subscription is $120/year. They friggin' doubled it. I had to talk that over with my wife, and she kind of shrugged - "Actually, I think we are BOTH subscribing to The Guardian". Basically, we like it so much we're voluntarily overpaying, and not flinching at the doubling our cost for news. Because we TRUST it.
Arwa Madhawi today put out her second in two days on Gaza, and on American coverage just ignoring genocidal statements towards Palestinian protesters. (And by "genocidal statements", I don't mean a chant, I mean it was ' “Yes I do, I support genocide,” the officer said, after a protester accused him of this at a graduation event at the College of Staten Island, part of the public City University of New York (Cuny) system, last Thursday. “I support killing all you guys, how about that?” ' )
Didn't make The Times. Had to read about New York in a British newspaper that hired a Brown person. After my recent substack experience, I can't imagine trusting a news source that was anything BUT paid by the readers. And The Guardian. The only one not owned by a rich family, oddly enough.
I've got no idea how these papers that exist only to make money are supposed to ever earn anybody's trust, and be a news source rather than an entertainment product. Everybody seems to want to call themselves journalism, provide entertainment that maximizes income. That business model has been nailed down, Fox makes vast sums. All you can do is compete around the edges, and in any event, not a fit topic for a real journalist like Ling, because it's not journalism, it's beneath him.
Just keep doing this, Justin; this is the future of journalism, if not entertainment; advertising was always bad for journalism since my uncle ran The Drumheller Mail in the sixties. It could only carry good news about local business! Substack is much better.
The Guardian is such a gem. It probably didn't come across, but they went through some real internal chaos over the last decade — and they sorted it out, and have improved themselves. It's an outlet that seems keen on getting better, not just maintaining. There's some outlets that are really (small-c) conservative in their outlook. The Times being a prime example.
I think we're eventually going to hit on a revenue model that doesn't require 0.5% of the population paying to sustain everyone's media ecosystem. I'm hoping Substack is going to help figure that out but, also, I'm growing increasingly bored thinking about how to get there — because I can't help but feel like the big-money investors are more inclined to listen to Vivek.
In a bit of a tangent, one youtube creator that occasionally pops up in my feed is trying to make the pivot to substack because he is concerned about keeping up with the youtube algorithm for revenue. Producing video, as you mentioned is expensive, and youtube is fickle. Not sure how that’s going for him. I followed him onto substack out of curiosity, but every thing is subscribers only and he has failed to produce content I would pay for. But for me even his youtube is occasional background noise. I am definitely not the audience.
I am not sure how easily people can roll from one medium to another. Seems like It takes a lot of work and time to build an audience.
It's so difficult! Youtubers are constantly trying to navigate Youtube's community/copyright policies — which often change without warning or explanation. One of my favorite Youtubers is Digging the Greats (he does these deep dive music explainers.) He's been constantly demonetized because he plays too many short clips from the music he's talking about (which is fair use, through and through.) He breaks it down here, it's *really* interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyuBVK-KZLs
And the Substack equation is so difficult. I put relatively little behind the paywall, which I expected to hurt my paid subscriber numbers — but people keep signing up for paid subscriptions, which is really heartening. (On that note: If you, or other subscribers, have suggestions on perks they'd be interested in, please let me know!)
I am probably not the best one to ask. To me your substack is the perk. I don’t need more then this. Your work here is worth the subscription fee alone, but for you and the few other people I have paid subscriptions for on Substack, it’s generally because I appreciate their contribution to the media landscape on a broad level.
I do wonder how well it works for people who have everything behind the pay wall, does that really equal more payed subscriptions?
Tangent number 2. I work in an industry with similar funding concerns, sort of. I work for a non profit that plans, constructs and maintains trails as community amenities. There is no obligation to pay to use trails. The funding model is complicated, but largely grants, and government funding of various kinds, with some corporate donations in the mix. It is very inconsistent, both from region to region and year to year. Some users chose to either become members of their local trail organization, or make donations, but the vast majority of users do not. This is cause for much naval gazing across North America. No one has has figured it out. Most people appreciate trails, everyone figures someone else should be paying for them.
The Guardian just advised me that their new subscription is $120/year. They friggin' doubled it. I had to talk that over with my wife, and she kind of shrugged - "Actually, I think we are BOTH subscribing to The Guardian". Basically, we like it so much we're voluntarily overpaying, and not flinching at the doubling our cost for news. Because we TRUST it.
Arwa Madhawi today put out her second in two days on Gaza, and on American coverage just ignoring genocidal statements towards Palestinian protesters. (And by "genocidal statements", I don't mean a chant, I mean it was ' “Yes I do, I support genocide,” the officer said, after a protester accused him of this at a graduation event at the College of Staten Island, part of the public City University of New York (Cuny) system, last Thursday. “I support killing all you guys, how about that?” ' )
Didn't make The Times. Had to read about New York in a British newspaper that hired a Brown person. After my recent substack experience, I can't imagine trusting a news source that was anything BUT paid by the readers. And The Guardian. The only one not owned by a rich family, oddly enough.
I've got no idea how these papers that exist only to make money are supposed to ever earn anybody's trust, and be a news source rather than an entertainment product. Everybody seems to want to call themselves journalism, provide entertainment that maximizes income. That business model has been nailed down, Fox makes vast sums. All you can do is compete around the edges, and in any event, not a fit topic for a real journalist like Ling, because it's not journalism, it's beneath him.
Just keep doing this, Justin; this is the future of journalism, if not entertainment; advertising was always bad for journalism since my uncle ran The Drumheller Mail in the sixties. It could only carry good news about local business! Substack is much better.
The Guardian is such a gem. It probably didn't come across, but they went through some real internal chaos over the last decade — and they sorted it out, and have improved themselves. It's an outlet that seems keen on getting better, not just maintaining. There's some outlets that are really (small-c) conservative in their outlook. The Times being a prime example.
I think we're eventually going to hit on a revenue model that doesn't require 0.5% of the population paying to sustain everyone's media ecosystem. I'm hoping Substack is going to help figure that out but, also, I'm growing increasingly bored thinking about how to get there — because I can't help but feel like the big-money investors are more inclined to listen to Vivek.
Ah well. (And thanks, as always!)
In a bit of a tangent, one youtube creator that occasionally pops up in my feed is trying to make the pivot to substack because he is concerned about keeping up with the youtube algorithm for revenue. Producing video, as you mentioned is expensive, and youtube is fickle. Not sure how that’s going for him. I followed him onto substack out of curiosity, but every thing is subscribers only and he has failed to produce content I would pay for. But for me even his youtube is occasional background noise. I am definitely not the audience.
I am not sure how easily people can roll from one medium to another. Seems like It takes a lot of work and time to build an audience.
It's so difficult! Youtubers are constantly trying to navigate Youtube's community/copyright policies — which often change without warning or explanation. One of my favorite Youtubers is Digging the Greats (he does these deep dive music explainers.) He's been constantly demonetized because he plays too many short clips from the music he's talking about (which is fair use, through and through.) He breaks it down here, it's *really* interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyuBVK-KZLs
And the Substack equation is so difficult. I put relatively little behind the paywall, which I expected to hurt my paid subscriber numbers — but people keep signing up for paid subscriptions, which is really heartening. (On that note: If you, or other subscribers, have suggestions on perks they'd be interested in, please let me know!)
I am probably not the best one to ask. To me your substack is the perk. I don’t need more then this. Your work here is worth the subscription fee alone, but for you and the few other people I have paid subscriptions for on Substack, it’s generally because I appreciate their contribution to the media landscape on a broad level.
I do wonder how well it works for people who have everything behind the pay wall, does that really equal more payed subscriptions?
Tangent number 2. I work in an industry with similar funding concerns, sort of. I work for a non profit that plans, constructs and maintains trails as community amenities. There is no obligation to pay to use trails. The funding model is complicated, but largely grants, and government funding of various kinds, with some corporate donations in the mix. It is very inconsistent, both from region to region and year to year. Some users chose to either become members of their local trail organization, or make donations, but the vast majority of users do not. This is cause for much naval gazing across North America. No one has has figured it out. Most people appreciate trails, everyone figures someone else should be paying for them.