EZRA KLEIN v MATT YGLESIAS

To be provocative: the first of those two tweets is good and the second of those two tweets is bad

the first one is so abstract as to be meaningless

You have to have eaten lead paint as a child to think you can sway Manchin by facts and logic or that he has some ideological core that would require abolishing the filibuster to accomplish. Cutting off the tops of mountains and protecting his daughters revenue aren’t impeded by the filibuster.

Klein’s podcast is some boring ass sh1t

keep your head down and be boring thats how you get to the ny times, know nothing and consider everything a thought experiment thats how you get to substack

Like he’s interviewing George Saunders, one of the most interesting, creative writer dudes alive, and somehow 20 minutes goes by and I’m like huh?

“Tell me about kindness...” stfu

been enjoying the free weekly post i get emailed from matt's substack. his writing on vox had definitely gotten less saucy compared to slate era. it's interesting the trade-off ppl like him make in switching to mailing lists where they can either maintain or increase their income while (a) increasing their writing output and (b) tanking their reach (he tweeted some numbers a while ago comparing substack views to vox articles and it was orders of magnitude lower). in his case in terms of policy influence it likely doesn't matter much bc enough DC people will read him, and he still has a million twitter followers, but it is kinda crazy that someone who has been so saturated in the discourse now writes 7/8 posts a week behind a paywall strictly for his biggest fans that are willing to pay double an nyt online subscription to read them

He still does a Vox podcast iirc

substack is really doing good work keeping some of the worst takers work under wraps

tho theyll prob be back once the subsidies run out

Libby Watson's healthcare substack is the only one I've heard of that doesn't sound like torture (and even then I can't imagine paying for it)

I too have a solution for the joe manchin problem and it also involves "curbing"

yeah ive read some newletters that are focused deep reporting on one topic that are good but i have no idea why anyone would pay for takes takes are plentiful and free xp

the thing that seems better for both writers and readers than these sole proprietor newsletters on capricious vc backed platforms is subscription based journalist owned coops like defector or brick house

yeah I'm glad that model seems to be turning out to be somewhat sustainable, at least for certain personnel/subject matter

I wonder if you could make a substack advice column work - Dear Prudie but flatter the yuppie readers and advice-seekers with the veneer of exclusive access and a guaranteed response once a month or whatever

yeah seems like the writers having big social media followings is pretty central for the proposition, but once you have that ability to get yr message out the whole thing makes a lot of sense, and not having advertising simplifies the whole thing so much from tech staffing and editorial perspectives xp

yeah ive read some newletters that are focused deep reporting on one topic that are good but i have no idea why anyone would pay for takes takes are plentiful and free xp

― lag∞n, Tuesday, March 2, 2021 12:16 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this ones dope, goes deep on labor law https://brandonmagner.substack.com/

matt’s is the only one i read that puts a significant amount of stuff behind the paywall, for the most part they’re just blogs

i think the only newsletter id consider paying for is matt levine money stuff. i imagine he’s gotten a huge raise from bloomberg in the last 6 months

tho theyll prob be back once the subsidies run out

― lag∞n, Tuesday, March 2, 2021 11:26 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i feel like it’s actually a p sustainable business model, similar to patreon. having people paying money is key imo. is patreon subsidized by vc?

matt’s is the only one i read that puts a significant amount of stuff behind the paywall, for the most part they’re just blogs

I believe Andrew Sullivan's is entirely paywalled, which is the greatest act of kindness he's ever done the world.

lol

not sure if Glenn greenwalds is private too but i haven’t heard much from him lately

i feel like it’s actually a p sustainable business model, similar to patreon.

― flopson, Wednesday, March 3, 2021 10:17 AM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk are people really going to want to keep paying nytimes money for matts takes it seems crazy to me, and if they are how many other newsletters are they willing to pay for, surely patreon only provides an actual livelihood to a relative handful of people, not to mention these big name writers are denying themselves exposure which is not great for their long term viability

notable both glenn and matty have become even dumber and takier on twitter since moving over which i mean they were already very dumb and takey

snubstack just represents the atomization of "well-actually" culture afaict. didn't realize it was...snubsidized.

glenn has become a full time cancel culture warrior / tucker carlson guest, just totally unsubstantial, something to see

i agree but ppl do it for podcasts on patreon

the extreme price discrimination is in tension with writers wanting long term exposure, but writers who need more exposure will just opt to set more posts to free mode so there’s a built in mechanism for that

xps to lagoon

yeah but even then its like having a personal blog, you dont have a media org to push yr stuff out

and how many podcasters are making a living on patreon 20? 50? and is the market for written takes even comparable to that

yeah, i was gonna say that seems like the market for written vs pods is quite distinct

snubstack just represents the atomization of "well-actually" culture afaict. didn't realize it was...snubsidized.

― pence's eye juice (Hunt3r), Wednesday, March 3, 2021 10:35 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

eh i feel like u guys are basing your opinion of it on 3 writers. it’s basically just blogs with an option to pay for premium content. its just like the podcasts you guys all love but with text. there was a similar path dependence where podcasts were initially uncool on twitter at first bc the first big pods were corny then cool ppl eventuality got on

blogs have pretty much died out tho

fwiw there have been people making big money off newsletters for a long time but theyre all tech (business) and finance

i read that that kid whos mom got fired from nike for passing him sneaker info was not only using that info in his sneaker flipping business but was in fact selling it to third parties... in a newsletter lol

xps- it’ll be a smaller market than podcasts prob but it doesn’t mean it’s unsustainable i don’t think. there are lots of specialist writers with followers of a few hundred/couple thousand that do well

anyways i don’t really care abt substack the company i just liked blogs and it’s gotten ppl to write more blog style content than medium did so im invested in its success to the extent i want that to continue

even the podcast economy seems pretty dicey a majority of it seems to be propped up by those we reinvented socks type companies

the paywall is against the spirit of blogs open discourse is the thing im most opposed to but as long as most writers use the paywall option sparingly (which so far all but a few do) it should be fine

podcasts are here to stay imho

im sure theyre not going away but that doesnt mean the current conditions will persist, theres already big consolidation, and various factors will prob make it harder to have the types of grassroots success that weve seen til now

it seems like if substack had a like 10 newsletters for $20 type deal then you could have a li feed and whatnot it wld be good

i don't have anything against the substack model itself, but the people it seems to be rewarding most are just . . . Posters

being edited improves essentially everyone's writing, and traditional news organizations at least make a stab at certain guidelines and proprieties. (my understanding is that nymag had a team devoted to keeping sullivan from trodding too heavily on his own dick.)

the substack stars are stars because they tweet 75 times a day and are willing to be 'provocative' about matters they understand little better than anyone else. gg at least used to have sources; i'm not sure matty or sullivan have ever actually reported anything.

they're just making shit up as they go along, and being wrong about iraq or political horserace stuff or whatever that shit sullivan was on about sarah palin's baby never ends up mattering. there's already way too much op-ed in the world -- it's cheap! it riles people up! -- but at least in a newspaper you might get some other stuff too. paying money to read individual dumbasses' tweetstorms is for suckas

i don't have anything against the substack model itself, but the people it seems to be rewarding most are just . . . Posters

Klein’s podcast is some boring ass sh1t

― calstars, Monday, March 1, 2021 8:23 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Disagree! Long-time listener, big fan.

I also got a lot out of that Saunders interview, but YMMV.

Yeah i think most of klein is good. Def fan also.