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> But to answer their question: yes, I think Substack is definitely part of the future we want. You wrote what I wanted to. Substack is an enabling technology

by SllX 6y ago

> But to answer their question: yes, I think Substack is definitely part of the future we want. You wrote what I wanted to. Substack is an enabling technology, and functionally replaces the printer that magazines like the New Yorker use to physically print their magazine before sending them out to readers via USPS (instead of email) or to bookstores. They also picked a very good payment processor in Stripe, another enabling technology that functionally replaces the physical terminals you would get from Square or First Data. In the long term I might be concerned about Substack if they take on too much VC money and try to go the full Medium route. In the short term, concerning yourself with Substack is like concerning yourself with what kind of printers that a book publisher uses. A printer can be technically interesting, but ultimately it does the job you ask of it.

hombre_fatal 6y ago
What excites me about Patreon and Substack is the underlying cultural shift that makes them possible. 10 years ago, users of a free service I run urged me to put up a Paypal donation button like they were dying to throw money at me. After months of urging, I finally did. ...I received so little in donations that I refunded the money. Last year, my users urged me to put up a Patreon and, expecting the worst, I finally did it. The service isn't nearly as popular as it was 10 years ago, yet they've committed $300+/month which is enough to at least pay for some of my time to improve the service, a service I considered taking down. It's hard to overstate what's going on here. There are avenues opening up just when I thought, yesterday, that they closed off for good. Just like Adsense created a content renaissance that let small creators (on a couple mediums) make a living, it might not be overstating it to say that we're seeing the next one, this time with direct, recurring (important!) funding. Aside, I wonder what the historian's analysis of the cultural shift would look like mapped out. I wouldn't be surprised if Twitch was the lynchpin in normalizing direct contribution.

by SllX 6y ago

hombre_fatal 6y ago

What excites me about Patreon and Substack is the underlying cultural shift that makes them possible. 10 years ago, users of a free service I run urged me to put up a Paypal donation button like they were dying to throw money at me. After months of urging, I finally did. ...I received so little in donations that I refunded the money. Last year, my users urged me to put up a Patreon and, expecting the worst, I finally did it. The service isn't nearly as popular as it was 10 years ago, yet they've committed $300+/month which is enough to at least pay for some of my time to improve the service, a service I considered taking down. It's hard to overstate what's going on here. There are avenues opening up just when I thought, yesterday, that they closed off for good. Just like Adsense created a content renaissance that let small creators (on a couple mediums) make a living, it might not be overstating it to say that we're seeing the next one, this time with direct, recurring (important!) funding. Aside, I wonder what the historian's analysis of the cultural shift would look like mapped out. I wouldn't be surprised if Twitch was the lynchpin in normalizing direct contribution.