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"If I have 100,000 subscribers and only 1% sign up for the paid plan at $5/month, I'll be pulling in $60,000 per year. A million subs, and I'll be rich!" Probl

"If I have 100,000 subscribers and only 1% sign up for the paid plan at $5/month, I'll be pulling in $60,000 per year. A million subs, and I'll be rich!" Problem is, almost no one wants to pay, and even if they do, you have to deal with massive churn and a constant demand for high-quality content that is truly unique, high quality, and impossible to find elsewhere. There are only a few top level people making this work, and all have deep knowledge of profitable niches or business customers who can foot the bill for their employees. Almost everyone else is constantly begging for people to convert to the paid plan, or burning out.

aiappreciator 4y ago
Oh, if you have good enough content that's also important to people. People will pay. I've started paying for an AI substack because the news is so important to me, and I couldn't find high quality & deep coverage in mainstream media. Now, this does mean the 'average' journalist stands no chance. But 'average' news is already overproduced to worthlessness. No one needs the same boring take rewritten slightly. GPT-4 can already do that. They would have been unemployed anyways, because all the average newspapers (read local newspapers) died out. The only remainders are national newspapers that only hire the best of the best. At least now they get to experiment with their passionate topic, and potentially discover new markets, instead of being forced to report on mainstream topics.
- ilamont 4y ago
  Oh, if you have good enough content that's also important to people. People will pay. The question is how many will pay (not just say they'll pay) and for how long. I used to pay for Molly White's excellent Web3 reality check newsletter. She changed the platform and I didn't follow her. It was interesting while she was reporting all of the BS and fraud, but after the bubble has popped it's less compelling. For someone getting into a hot field like AI, will the paid subscriber interest still be there in 1 year, 2 years, 5 years? If the writer expands to an adjacent area, will that make some of his existing subs bail? Ben Thompson keeps Stratechery going not only because he's a strong, insightful writer, but he didn't go too narrow (for instance, only Apple strategy) and there's always something to write about for people who follow this stuff. Benedict Evans works in a similar way in terms of not going too narrow.
  - aiappreciator 4y ago
    Two factors here: 1. Journalists don't necessarily want to write about 1 topic for their entire lives either. They can pivot, and its no harder than finding a different job for a journalist. 2. Journalist writers have a responsibility and freedom to choose more durable topics. If you built your brand on a fad (web3), even if to criticize it, you make yourself vulnerable. Whereas if you built on on say cloud computing/ancient history/how to find jobs in tech, you'd be on way safer grounds. I would say AI is the rare topic that is both insanely hyped and permanently durable. The industrial revolution lasted centuries, so will AI.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      So, say, "cloud computing." I've had a conversation with a successful consultant and having a "cloud computing" business for him is mostly about specializing in AWS (and costs specifically). Which is a very different business from what writing about cloud was 10 years ago. The money probably is in being a specialist but the caveat is that specialties often go out of fashion.
- iorrus 4y ago
  What Substack is this? I’m interested in a good AI Substack that keeps me up to date. I follow a few free newsletters but something more in-depth would be very helpful.
flappyeagle 4y ago
Sounds like every other entrepreneurial endeavor. What % of startups go to zero, what % of restaurants close? Begging for people to convert is also called salesmanship
ghaff 4y ago
That's more or less the classic "If I can only get 1% market share in China I'll be rich." Which turns out to be really hard. I did some research as a consultant once for a company trying to sell a product for 32-bit to 64-bit transition. They were obsessed with the total addressable market and assigned some percentage of that market they thought they could capture. Weren't interested in hearing about any more substantive advice and went out of business of course.

aiappreciator 4y ago

Oh, if you have good enough content that's also important to people. People will pay. I've started paying for an AI substack because the news is so important to me, and I couldn't find high quality & deep coverage in mainstream media. Now, this does mean the 'average' journalist stands no chance. But 'average' news is already overproduced to worthlessness. No one needs the same boring take rewritten slightly. GPT-4 can already do that. They would have been unemployed anyways, because all the average newspapers (read local newspapers) died out. The only remainders are national newspapers that only hire the best of the best. At least now they get to experiment with their passionate topic, and potentially discover new markets, instead of being forced to report on mainstream topics.

ilamont 4y ago
Oh, if you have good enough content that's also important to people. People will pay. The question is how many will pay (not just say they'll pay) and for how long. I used to pay for Molly White's excellent Web3 reality check newsletter. She changed the platform and I didn't follow her. It was interesting while she was reporting all of the BS and fraud, but after the bubble has popped it's less compelling. For someone getting into a hot field like AI, will the paid subscriber interest still be there in 1 year, 2 years, 5 years? If the writer expands to an adjacent area, will that make some of his existing subs bail? Ben Thompson keeps Stratechery going not only because he's a strong, insightful writer, but he didn't go too narrow (for instance, only Apple strategy) and there's always something to write about for people who follow this stuff. Benedict Evans works in a similar way in terms of not going too narrow.
- aiappreciator 4y ago
  Two factors here: 1. Journalists don't necessarily want to write about 1 topic for their entire lives either. They can pivot, and its no harder than finding a different job for a journalist. 2. Journalist writers have a responsibility and freedom to choose more durable topics. If you built your brand on a fad (web3), even if to criticize it, you make yourself vulnerable. Whereas if you built on on say cloud computing/ancient history/how to find jobs in tech, you'd be on way safer grounds. I would say AI is the rare topic that is both insanely hyped and permanently durable. The industrial revolution lasted centuries, so will AI.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    So, say, "cloud computing." I've had a conversation with a successful consultant and having a "cloud computing" business for him is mostly about specializing in AWS (and costs specifically). Which is a very different business from what writing about cloud was 10 years ago. The money probably is in being a specialist but the caveat is that specialties often go out of fashion.
iorrus 4y ago
What Substack is this? I’m interested in a good AI Substack that keeps me up to date. I follow a few free newsletters but something more in-depth would be very helpful.

flappyeagle 4y ago

Sounds like every other entrepreneurial endeavor. What % of startups go to zero, what % of restaurants close? Begging for people to convert is also called salesmanship

ghaff 4y ago

That's more or less the classic "If I can only get 1% market share in China I'll be rich." Which turns out to be really hard. I did some research as a consultant once for a company trying to sell a product for 32-bit to 64-bit transition. They were obsessed with the total addressable market and assigned some percentage of that market they thought they could capture. Weren't interested in hearing about any more substantive advice and went out of business of course.