6 ms·

I don’t think Substack will own the creator economy for writers, but it seems the shift is real. Why would I pay for dull news wire stuff from the mainstream me

by agd 6y ago

I don’t think Substack will own the creator economy for writers, but it seems the shift is real. Why would I pay for dull news wire stuff from the mainstream media when I can get fantastic, expert, lengthy, niche content on stuff I care about via newsletters? Even better if writers start building communities too.

TuringNYC 6y ago
>> Even better if writers start building communities too. Even even better: writers get paid with fewer middlemen, and writers can get paid proportionally to their work's readership. The downside: sometimes the pooled model helps subsidize writers who do important work, but perhaps work that is insufficiently popular to attract paid readers...who funds that type of investigative journalism?
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  I don't think anything stops a group of people to pool up in a substack?
  - TuringNYC 6y ago
    My worry is that writers writing on popular topics get paid (good), but those doing important work (e.g. investigative journalism) but w/o popular demand dont get paid sufficiently. Traditionally, some work subsidizes other work. A good analogy might be a university - the EMBA, CS, Applied Sciences departments end up subsidizing the humanities departments. This is good. Classics are important. So is literature.
    - BurningFrog 6y ago
      > Traditionally, some work subsidizes other work I know news organizations like to claim they unselfishly use their money to do God's Work. And I know some of that happened. But I also know people like to exaggerate their civic mindedness.
      - TuringNYC 6y ago
        This is a great point. I think the biggest problem is revenue going into a large news org, getting skimmed by non-value-add portions of the org, and writers ending up with crumbs. Though I guess that is true of most corporations, except some industries pay the producers far less. This used to be true for many tech orgs in the past, but I think that has been solved over time where the makers actually get a good share.
    - linuxftw 6y ago
      People pay for what's important to them. Breaking, big exposes, they make for nice headlines, but nobody cares. What most people want is to be 'plugged in' to whatever the topic du jour is so they can emote with their coworkers at the water cooler, which helps them feel like they're 'good people.' It's super hard for people to internalize that they actually don't care about stuff, what they care about is their appearance. The people making real impacts are non or not for profit organizations that battle corporations in court and sue them for things like pollution. Journalists are worthless.
blakesterz 6y ago
> Why would I pay for dull news wire stuff from the mainstream media when I can get fantastic, expert, lengthy, niche content on stuff I care about via newsletters? I'll just tell you why I won't pay for this, but would pay for something like the NY Times or my local newspaper. I care to know what's going on, in general. I'm not a new junky, but I read headlines from a bunch of different places, and sometimes the entire article. Paying for a place with original reporting on a bunch of different topics appeals to me. What's that old saying, a mile wide and an inch deep? That works for me. Paying to read one person write about one topic... not so much. I already get a bunch of free newsletters from a bunch of different people on a bunch of different platforms. Someone would have to be REALLY special for me to pay to read their emails. I can't imagine there's more than one person like that. That's just me, of course, there's probably enough people out there that are willing to pay for a bunch of special emails to keep substack going.
- tootie 6y ago
  Yup. Substack writers may know their niche very well but they're only going to write about what interests them. This could be a boon to things like industry media that displaces trade magazines but I can't see how they could possibly replace boots on the ground journalism thar only comes from professional newsrooms.
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    I'd be inclined to agree if traditional newsrooms weren't dumping their boots on the ground journalism as fast as possible. The worst thing websites like Buzzfeed did was to tell the old guard that this was an unnecessary cost center.
    - matt_o 6y ago
      This is why I get my general news from the likes of Reuters and Associated Press. I've found that these have more facts and much less opinion. Then, when I want someone's take on something, from someone I trust, I get it from substack. Eg. Matthew Yglesias on policy, Noah Smith on finance/economics, etc. In contrast, most big newspapers seem to me to be pushing opinion masked as fact. They never actually lie, but they are selective in what they represent and imply connections where there are none.
scandox 6y ago
> fantastic, expert, lengthy, niche content on stuff I care about I wonder how you'll find out about stuff you didn't know you needed to care about. I feel like this approach pushes us all deeper into our in-groups and away from a larger sense of community. I also wonder what will be lost in terms of collaboration and oversight.
- runeks 6y ago
  > I wonder how you'll find out about stuff you didn't know you needed to care about. Hacker News
- spikels 6y ago
  > I wonder how you'll find out about stuff you didn't know you needed to care about. I feel like this approach pushes us all deeper into our in-groups and away from a larger sense of community. Who decides “what I need to care about”? The editors of NYTimes? I remember when they decided we needed to worry about WMDs in Iraq. The major media businesses have built their business models around catering to in-groups. And collaboration and oversight within these organizations is focused on shaping (even policing) content for their target audience. The eclectic tastes of individual writers - without the oversight and peer pressure - seem less likely to rigidly cater to a particular in-group.
BurningFrog 6y ago
I haven't seen any news reporting on Substack? There is a lot of commentary on the news, but the news itself still comes from elsewhere.
- ameister14 6y ago
  I don't know - I've seen interviews, articles about circumstances and investigations there. I haven't seen 'A bomb went off in xxx today, as such and such claimed responsibility,' if that's what you mean by news but frankly that comes from the AP Wire for most traditional news organizations as well
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by agd 6y ago

TuringNYC 6y ago

>> Even better if writers start building communities too. Even even better: writers get paid with fewer middlemen, and writers can get paid proportionally to their work's readership. The downside: sometimes the pooled model helps subsidize writers who do important work, but perhaps work that is insufficiently popular to attract paid readers...who funds that type of investigative journalism?

BurningFrog 6y ago
I don't think anything stops a group of people to pool up in a substack?
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  My worry is that writers writing on popular topics get paid (good), but those doing important work (e.g. investigative journalism) but w/o popular demand dont get paid sufficiently. Traditionally, some work subsidizes other work. A good analogy might be a university - the EMBA, CS, Applied Sciences departments end up subsidizing the humanities departments. This is good. Classics are important. So is literature.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    > Traditionally, some work subsidizes other work I know news organizations like to claim they unselfishly use their money to do God's Work. And I know some of that happened. But I also know people like to exaggerate their civic mindedness.
    - TuringNYC 6y ago
      This is a great point. I think the biggest problem is revenue going into a large news org, getting skimmed by non-value-add portions of the org, and writers ending up with crumbs. Though I guess that is true of most corporations, except some industries pay the producers far less. This used to be true for many tech orgs in the past, but I think that has been solved over time where the makers actually get a good share.
  - linuxftw 6y ago
    People pay for what's important to them. Breaking, big exposes, they make for nice headlines, but nobody cares. What most people want is to be 'plugged in' to whatever the topic du jour is so they can emote with their coworkers at the water cooler, which helps them feel like they're 'good people.' It's super hard for people to internalize that they actually don't care about stuff, what they care about is their appearance. The people making real impacts are non or not for profit organizations that battle corporations in court and sue them for things like pollution. Journalists are worthless.

blakesterz 6y ago

> Why would I pay for dull news wire stuff from the mainstream media when I can get fantastic, expert, lengthy, niche content on stuff I care about via newsletters? I'll just tell you why I won't pay for this, but would pay for something like the NY Times or my local newspaper. I care to know what's going on, in general. I'm not a new junky, but I read headlines from a bunch of different places, and sometimes the entire article. Paying for a place with original reporting on a bunch of different topics appeals to me. What's that old saying, a mile wide and an inch deep? That works for me. Paying to read one person write about one topic... not so much. I already get a bunch of free newsletters from a bunch of different people on a bunch of different platforms. Someone would have to be REALLY special for me to pay to read their emails. I can't imagine there's more than one person like that. That's just me, of course, there's probably enough people out there that are willing to pay for a bunch of special emails to keep substack going.

tootie 6y ago
Yup. Substack writers may know their niche very well but they're only going to write about what interests them. This could be a boon to things like industry media that displaces trade magazines but I can't see how they could possibly replace boots on the ground journalism thar only comes from professional newsrooms.
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  I'd be inclined to agree if traditional newsrooms weren't dumping their boots on the ground journalism as fast as possible. The worst thing websites like Buzzfeed did was to tell the old guard that this was an unnecessary cost center.
  - matt_o 6y ago
    This is why I get my general news from the likes of Reuters and Associated Press. I've found that these have more facts and much less opinion. Then, when I want someone's take on something, from someone I trust, I get it from substack. Eg. Matthew Yglesias on policy, Noah Smith on finance/economics, etc. In contrast, most big newspapers seem to me to be pushing opinion masked as fact. They never actually lie, but they are selective in what they represent and imply connections where there are none.

scandox 6y ago

> fantastic, expert, lengthy, niche content on stuff I care about I wonder how you'll find out about stuff you didn't know you needed to care about. I feel like this approach pushes us all deeper into our in-groups and away from a larger sense of community. I also wonder what will be lost in terms of collaboration and oversight.

runeks 6y ago
> I wonder how you'll find out about stuff you didn't know you needed to care about. Hacker News
spikels 6y ago
> I wonder how you'll find out about stuff you didn't know you needed to care about. I feel like this approach pushes us all deeper into our in-groups and away from a larger sense of community. Who decides “what I need to care about”? The editors of NYTimes? I remember when they decided we needed to worry about WMDs in Iraq. The major media businesses have built their business models around catering to in-groups. And collaboration and oversight within these organizations is focused on shaping (even policing) content for their target audience. The eclectic tastes of individual writers - without the oversight and peer pressure - seem less likely to rigidly cater to a particular in-group.

BurningFrog 6y ago

I haven't seen any news reporting on Substack? There is a lot of commentary on the news, but the news itself still comes from elsewhere.

ameister14 6y ago
I don't know - I've seen interviews, articles about circumstances and investigations there. I haven't seen 'A bomb went off in xxx today, as such and such claimed responsibility,' if that's what you mean by news but frankly that comes from the AP Wire for most traditional news organizations as well

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]