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I’m happy with this. It allows me to directly support writers I like and it allows them to write high quality long form content on their own schedule without t
by fossuser 6y ago
I’m happy with this.
It allows me to directly support writers I like and it allows them to write high quality long form content on their own schedule without the corrupting influence of ads.
They can be more independently minded.
Paying for the NYT I support writers I think are great, but also writers I think are terrible (that Taylor Lorenz spat recently), also policy I think is wrong (pushing to publish Scott Alexander’s last name). Most of the tech reporting is similarly bad. I also get ads and I’m forced to call to cancel.
Vox produces some great stuff, but also recode and that no handshakes article mocking Silicon Valley for taking the pandemic seriously. I don’t want to support those writers.
It’s nice to support writers individually and directly.
Maybe Steven Levy or Li Yuan will do newsletters too.
The next step is making it easy for them to own their own platform under their own domain and not on medium or substack.
- kspacewalk2 6y agoHow does one discover new writers in this world of balkanized newsletters? Even more importantly, how does one get exposed to different perspectives? Not necessarily radically different ones either, just writers with blind-spots that differ from those of your 5-10 favourite reporters/commenters/pundits?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- fossuser 6y agoOn one hand there’s a risk people just go deeper into their own echo chambers with more extreme writers catering to only their audience. That said, I actually have seen the opposite. The freedom from ads, low overhead, and editorial independence allows writers to go more in depth and discuss nuanced topics with people they may disagree with. This isn’t a guarantee and it probably doesn’t have to be that way, but the variety of newsletters I read have a lot more depth than most of the articles in the NYT on any given day. You’re right though that there’s a vacuum for discovery and community that needs to be filled in a world of decentralized independent platforms. I think there are probably interesting things there that have yet to be built.
- BurningFrog 6y agoI guess only after the writers have "atomized" can they be reaggregated into new dynamic configurations. If I could pick my few favorite writers and combine them with some curated feeds I trusted, including a few "bubble bursters" giving me the top ranked stuff from people I consider idiots, that might just be a nice new news & commentary ecosystem!
- Illniyar 6y agoDistributed producers of content isn't a new phenomena. You have 3 ways of discovery in these environments - curation/aggregation, discovery services and attribution.
- wyclif 6y agoBundling is one way newsletter writers get discovered.