Besides, who wants to be in the position of kindly offering somebody else free copies of your writing when they only came here to yell at you because 'only white supremacists claim that people shop around for beliefs that confirm their world view' and the like. :)
Nothing should be free, to the extent it undermines value. And that is a strange paradox if the mission is to influence, educate, and contribute as much as possible. But that’s the old paradigm- information used to be expensive. You paid for only what had value for you. Now dissemination costs almost nothing. But this phenomenon ignores the cost of generating the content. And some tech giants continue to ignore this fact, and content providers really suffer (the music industry, journalism).
Regardless , in the case of Substack, writers should not ignore price as the primary signaling device, to use economic jargon. It is a two way street, not one way. The content creator needs to know if his content has value and meaning. The consumer, by accepting a price, demonstrates a level of value or respect for the content, which provides feedback to the content provider. Price seems the simplest mechanism, a simple feedback loop full of information, an abstract, nonverbal yet powerful form of communication. Free content, unfortunately, can make it hard to find value. A mix of the two seems like a really good idea!
I ultimately agree with this but it does somewhat pose a question with the model if more free content becomes premium. Because as a reader a subscription is actually a relatively high cost compared to a magazine subscription where you can get a range of content. Substack currently wins because the previous media got tired and narrowed by ideology and so the freshest thinkers are here. But in time part time bloggers might have to be realistic that there content could be overpriced relative to say a New Yorker sub. It's also a lot of pressure on the writer to try to justify it over a long time. Blogs started as a free content enterprise (though ads were part of the websites)- Id like to see that culture continue personally-its not in the business model but I'd like a feed of people who are happy to be read without payment. I'm getting tired of a subtle moral sense of guilt when I read a lot of free content that people might just be offering as a taster for subscription, rather than as content freely given to the marketplace of ideas. Similarly commenting in any critical way seems churlish with all the effort put in by the writer - though I can't help myself because I am interested in the ideas first.
From the first post of yours that I read, I was immediately struck by the value of the post and decided to be a paid subscriber! The topics that you analyze are very important and your views are clearly and logically presented. I would bet that most of your subscribers agree! Thanks for contributing so much to the community!
This is the way to do it with class. An offer I can refuse is an offer I can't refuse!
Conveniently, the subscription issue is directly pertinent to themes of your blog. How do these incentives work for different people, exactly? To what extent is it a signal of status when someone starts charging; to what extent virtue signaling when you have to justify or apologize? Is an arbitrary figure like 1/4 of posts more about the added value, or the symbolic gesture at added value? What can the discourse dynamics of pivoting to paid tell us about conspicuous cognition and motivated reasoning? Even if most of this is just Nudging or Behavioral Econ 101, I could imagine draft number 127 in your folder digging into some of the nuances.
Ha - yes, very good questions. Writing this blog post, I did worry that I was just producing sophisticated rationalisations - but for what, I’m not sure. In a way, I think that paywalling blogposts ultimately means sacrificing status, inasmuch as it is only by getting one’s work out there that one has a chance of gaining or increasing respect and admiration among audiences. But I see the point that having a blog that does well, financially, might also be a kind of status symbol and indeed a marker of credibility. Hmm, you’re right there’s a lot to think about here…
Oh, I agree about possibly sacrificing status. I was 25% joking, but I do think the paywall thing (and how that gets navigated, and explained), is a worthy topic in its own right. I wasn't just thinking in terms of status but all the other dimensions, including reciprocity, social norms, trust, challenge of quantifying all this, etc.
For instance, someone else on Substack (Dan Gardner) was ranting about paid subscriptions that block the free tier from commenting on any posts, with the argument that this effectively impoverishes discourse since the only people who can comment are already big fans inclined to suck up to the writer or agree with most of what they say, so you lose a whole spectrum of perspectives and end up with an echo chamber.
Meanwhile, my own thought process encountering the new paywall included things like: being cued that social norms now favor paying since your other subscribers presumably started paying; feeling guilty for not paying before given this new signal that free is unsustainable; wondering if you were swayed by successful Substackers who privately nagged you stop being a chump and market yourself more; feeling virtuous in having an excuse to signal that I support your newsletter (but also solidarity in joining others); a tiny bit of "Et tu, Brute?" And all this mental activity over a measly $5/month! It's certainly not just about the money or value; it's about what it signifies from your end, what embracing it signifies from my end, and what others' responses signify about its legitimacy.
Thanks for the peek into your process and intentions. A hearty thanks for your contributions to the “epistemic commons.” I have greatly benefited. It makes it feel less like a lonely, uphill battle to think in the ways that I do, and pursue it further.
Were you apologizing? It sounds almost like you were apologizing. Please don't do that. You write about reputation and status seeking, but how can you act like you are so high status that you don't care about status unless you have some status marker like one of those checks after your name? Paywalling a quarter of your posts seems like a good strategy to me, because it should encourage you to write more, and the more you write, the more you will repeat yourself, so the ideas in the paywalled posts will inevitably leak over into your open field writing, which I can then read for free, until I get tired of constantly being behind the in-crowd and then spend the money to read the rich, dense material and not just the leakage. Oh, and as was mentioned above in someone else's comment, $5 per month, $60 per year, seems like the right price to me, but that might not be the signal you want to be sending.
Congratulations on gaining more paid subscribers through your first paywalled article. Keep going! May I suggest that you offer a second paid subscription, one at a higher price, for something that resembles a philosophy class in which subscribers gain access to greater benefits?
Always happy when writers are getting paid for their work. Not sure if this useful or not but as an AUDHDer who subscribes to a lot of stacks, if something is £5 a month you’ll hook me, if it’s more I’ll skip past it.
Cool -- for me, however you want to handle subscriptions is up to you.
I'm more interested in the fact that you seem to get more intellectual satisfaction out of writing on Substack than from writing academic articles. If it weren't for your professional obligations, would you still do formal academic research?
I used to believe that the norms, forms, and habits of academic research were a means of developing a more accurate understanding of the world even if most academic articles sat unread on the bound periodical shelf. Now, I don't know. I'm signed up for blog that interviews authors in the humanities after they've published a new academic press book. Even before reading your contra critical theory post, I had been losing interest in the blog b/c many of the authors seem primarily interested in pushing a specific ideology (especially at more prestigious institutions -- many of the academics at less famous schools are still doing odd kinds of idiosyncratic stuff).
Interested to hear about your experience listening to ideologically motivated academia - I also encounter a lot of stuff like that.
I still think doing formal academic research is important. However, I am trying to really take my time with this side of my work, making sure that I only publish things I think are really worthwhile and constitute important contributions - rather than doing what many academics do, and what I used to do as a young academic, which was to try to publish as much stuff as possible merely for the sake of publishing.
Blogging actually really helps me think through topics, and it exposes me to a much greater diversity of perspectives than I encounter inside academia, so so far I would say that it’s been more of a complement to my research than a substitute.
It was said there were two things for which people would reliably pay online: porn and finance. I think there's now a third item: culture war. I've got to hand it to Substack, they really did pioneer a subscription business model for individual writers, kind of like an "OnlyFans" site for punditry.
One issue is that the economics of e.g. "OnlyFans" has been studied, and there's a problem, in that like many other markets it tends to a winner-take-all distribution. A very few people make a huge amount of money, and everyone else gets very little (the platform, like the House, always wins in the end). A person can get into a bad situation of chasing an income which will never materialize. The other side of the argument is that anything is better than nothing for the work.
For myself, it never seemed worth it (working subscription punditry, not OnlyFans). I'm not likely to be at the top of a pundit distribution, and scraping at the bottom was very unappealing. But everyone's individual circumstance is different.
However, there definitely seems to be a niche for academically-inclined liberal-bashing (no offense!). The general theme "The Mainstream Media Has A Liberal Bias" is like its love song, the same stuff can be redone over and over with slight variations. It does seem to be an expanding marketplace as far as I see (which is not a recommendation). It's entertainment at these levels, but there's a big world out there.
Good points. I think it would be difficult to argue that this blog is mostly about liberal bashing - but I’ll very much try not to get sucked into a tedious market where that content is rewarded.
This is a fascinating discovery about a perplexing challenge, suggesting that some people see paying for access as proof of its value. (A freebee being implicitly worth what it costs, I suppose.) Still, I'm encouraged by the fact that sound writing and thinking can get the monetary--vice only moral--support it needs to go on. Congratulations on your work.
I concur that your "... essays are...substantive, attempting to improve the epistemic commons with thoughtful, evidence-based, and balanced contributions."
So naturally, I am pleased to be an annual subscriber to your feed, as well as to Hidden Brain, based here in The States.
Just yesterday I finished your prior post, and am only part way through its comments.
"In the “draft” section on my Substack, I have 126 posts, reflecting that I generally have far more things I am interested in writing about than I have time to blog." This reaffirms my suspicion you may be too cerebral to be in a romantic relationship with a person, but are rather in love with ideas. Not that there is anything wrong with the former. Despite it's high failure rate😉
I'm in a romantic relationship (for 25 years now) with a person who also has a gross (144) of ideas for his (Swedish language only) blog that he would like to write, some day, sometime. My list of things I would write on my substack, if I get enough over illness to be willing to add another duty/obligation) is equally long. Those of us who are in love with ideas would like a more physical sort of love, too! see also: https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/looking-for-alice
The idea is to get the sort of love you want, not the sort that is easiest to get. I have no idea if Dan Williams is looking for love, but if he is, I wish that he may find someone who can appreciate him for who he is and what he does -- and the sooner the better.
"Two years after I began emailing essays into the void, I was contacted by the founder of a startup. He wanted me to write for them. He offered me $100k per year, which is about 5 times more than what I earn at the art gallery where I work part-time to pay the bills. I said thank you, but I wasn't interested. He took that as a negotiating tactic. I played along. After five minutes, he offered me $200k per year."
I disbelieve. No startup founder offers a *writer* $200k per year. Maybe for a writing department manager. Maybe he misheard, and it was something like "$200k of stock options". But $200k in actual money, for a startup writer, is not something plausible to me. And I know I'm being mean to fact-check the story like that.
But later on, good on him for revealing: "My salary from the blog is about $20k per year.". That I can believe. That's the sort of money we're talking about counting as a success.
Though it seems largely irrelevant whether true or not, I concur $200k per annum seems quite implausible.
On the flip side of the coin, using reason to judge whether irrational human activities occurred or not, tends toward counter-intuitiveness.
As noted elsewhere, I have never known anyone who embraces a decent facsimile of holistic reason. Even the best and smartest among us narrowly focus their intellect, while also typically exhibiting apathetic and or irrational highlights on important issues.
Note that substack already has a way to let people read a (single, it seems) paywalled post for free.
https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/24345969253524-What-is-a-teaser-post-on-Substack
You might want to try that. If there are a large number of people who are coming here for
one article, and then you won't see them again, that will cut down on the admin hassle for you.
If instead 'poor but want to read all your paywalled stuff' is the more usual pattern, you can
still make the arrangements you are proposing now. And it would be nice to know which is the case ....
Thanks Laura. Good idea - I will use this option for future paid posts.
Besides, who wants to be in the position of kindly offering somebody else free copies of your writing when they only came here to yell at you because 'only white supremacists claim that people shop around for beliefs that confirm their world view' and the like. :)
Nothing should be free, to the extent it undermines value. And that is a strange paradox if the mission is to influence, educate, and contribute as much as possible. But that’s the old paradigm- information used to be expensive. You paid for only what had value for you. Now dissemination costs almost nothing. But this phenomenon ignores the cost of generating the content. And some tech giants continue to ignore this fact, and content providers really suffer (the music industry, journalism).
Regardless , in the case of Substack, writers should not ignore price as the primary signaling device, to use economic jargon. It is a two way street, not one way. The content creator needs to know if his content has value and meaning. The consumer, by accepting a price, demonstrates a level of value or respect for the content, which provides feedback to the content provider. Price seems the simplest mechanism, a simple feedback loop full of information, an abstract, nonverbal yet powerful form of communication. Free content, unfortunately, can make it hard to find value. A mix of the two seems like a really good idea!
Great points - this is how I am coming to see things.
I ultimately agree with this but it does somewhat pose a question with the model if more free content becomes premium. Because as a reader a subscription is actually a relatively high cost compared to a magazine subscription where you can get a range of content. Substack currently wins because the previous media got tired and narrowed by ideology and so the freshest thinkers are here. But in time part time bloggers might have to be realistic that there content could be overpriced relative to say a New Yorker sub. It's also a lot of pressure on the writer to try to justify it over a long time. Blogs started as a free content enterprise (though ads were part of the websites)- Id like to see that culture continue personally-its not in the business model but I'd like a feed of people who are happy to be read without payment. I'm getting tired of a subtle moral sense of guilt when I read a lot of free content that people might just be offering as a taster for subscription, rather than as content freely given to the marketplace of ideas. Similarly commenting in any critical way seems churlish with all the effort put in by the writer - though I can't help myself because I am interested in the ideas first.
From the first post of yours that I read, I was immediately struck by the value of the post and decided to be a paid subscriber! The topics that you analyze are very important and your views are clearly and logically presented. I would bet that most of your subscribers agree! Thanks for contributing so much to the community!
Thanks for such a nice comment - this made my day!
This is the way to do it with class. An offer I can refuse is an offer I can't refuse!
Conveniently, the subscription issue is directly pertinent to themes of your blog. How do these incentives work for different people, exactly? To what extent is it a signal of status when someone starts charging; to what extent virtue signaling when you have to justify or apologize? Is an arbitrary figure like 1/4 of posts more about the added value, or the symbolic gesture at added value? What can the discourse dynamics of pivoting to paid tell us about conspicuous cognition and motivated reasoning? Even if most of this is just Nudging or Behavioral Econ 101, I could imagine draft number 127 in your folder digging into some of the nuances.
Ha - yes, very good questions. Writing this blog post, I did worry that I was just producing sophisticated rationalisations - but for what, I’m not sure. In a way, I think that paywalling blogposts ultimately means sacrificing status, inasmuch as it is only by getting one’s work out there that one has a chance of gaining or increasing respect and admiration among audiences. But I see the point that having a blog that does well, financially, might also be a kind of status symbol and indeed a marker of credibility. Hmm, you’re right there’s a lot to think about here…
Oh, I agree about possibly sacrificing status. I was 25% joking, but I do think the paywall thing (and how that gets navigated, and explained), is a worthy topic in its own right. I wasn't just thinking in terms of status but all the other dimensions, including reciprocity, social norms, trust, challenge of quantifying all this, etc.
For instance, someone else on Substack (Dan Gardner) was ranting about paid subscriptions that block the free tier from commenting on any posts, with the argument that this effectively impoverishes discourse since the only people who can comment are already big fans inclined to suck up to the writer or agree with most of what they say, so you lose a whole spectrum of perspectives and end up with an echo chamber.
Meanwhile, my own thought process encountering the new paywall included things like: being cued that social norms now favor paying since your other subscribers presumably started paying; feeling guilty for not paying before given this new signal that free is unsustainable; wondering if you were swayed by successful Substackers who privately nagged you stop being a chump and market yourself more; feeling virtuous in having an excuse to signal that I support your newsletter (but also solidarity in joining others); a tiny bit of "Et tu, Brute?" And all this mental activity over a measly $5/month! It's certainly not just about the money or value; it's about what it signifies from your end, what embracing it signifies from my end, and what others' responses signify about its legitimacy.
I’d encourage you to also check out the Emergent Ventures grant program. It might help, and I think you would probably have a very good chance
Thanks for the peek into your process and intentions. A hearty thanks for your contributions to the “epistemic commons.” I have greatly benefited. It makes it feel less like a lonely, uphill battle to think in the ways that I do, and pursue it further.
🙏🙏🙏
Thanks John - greatly appreciated!
Were you apologizing? It sounds almost like you were apologizing. Please don't do that. You write about reputation and status seeking, but how can you act like you are so high status that you don't care about status unless you have some status marker like one of those checks after your name? Paywalling a quarter of your posts seems like a good strategy to me, because it should encourage you to write more, and the more you write, the more you will repeat yourself, so the ideas in the paywalled posts will inevitably leak over into your open field writing, which I can then read for free, until I get tired of constantly being behind the in-crowd and then spend the money to read the rich, dense material and not just the leakage. Oh, and as was mentioned above in someone else's comment, $5 per month, $60 per year, seems like the right price to me, but that might not be the signal you want to be sending.
Ha - thanks. And yes, good point re. the price - I had kept it at the default settings but will think about it.
Congratulations on gaining more paid subscribers through your first paywalled article. Keep going! May I suggest that you offer a second paid subscription, one at a higher price, for something that resembles a philosophy class in which subscribers gain access to greater benefits?
Thanks Scott. Good idea - although I don’t know if I have the time to properly commit to something like that at the moment. I’ll have a think..
Always happy when writers are getting paid for their work. Not sure if this useful or not but as an AUDHDer who subscribes to a lot of stacks, if something is £5 a month you’ll hook me, if it’s more I’ll skip past it.
Thanks - that’s useful feedback.
Cool -- for me, however you want to handle subscriptions is up to you.
I'm more interested in the fact that you seem to get more intellectual satisfaction out of writing on Substack than from writing academic articles. If it weren't for your professional obligations, would you still do formal academic research?
I used to believe that the norms, forms, and habits of academic research were a means of developing a more accurate understanding of the world even if most academic articles sat unread on the bound periodical shelf. Now, I don't know. I'm signed up for blog that interviews authors in the humanities after they've published a new academic press book. Even before reading your contra critical theory post, I had been losing interest in the blog b/c many of the authors seem primarily interested in pushing a specific ideology (especially at more prestigious institutions -- many of the academics at less famous schools are still doing odd kinds of idiosyncratic stuff).
Interested to hear about your experience listening to ideologically motivated academia - I also encounter a lot of stuff like that.
I still think doing formal academic research is important. However, I am trying to really take my time with this side of my work, making sure that I only publish things I think are really worthwhile and constitute important contributions - rather than doing what many academics do, and what I used to do as a young academic, which was to try to publish as much stuff as possible merely for the sake of publishing.
Blogging actually really helps me think through topics, and it exposes me to a much greater diversity of perspectives than I encounter inside academia, so so far I would say that it’s been more of a complement to my research than a substitute.
It was said there were two things for which people would reliably pay online: porn and finance. I think there's now a third item: culture war. I've got to hand it to Substack, they really did pioneer a subscription business model for individual writers, kind of like an "OnlyFans" site for punditry.
One issue is that the economics of e.g. "OnlyFans" has been studied, and there's a problem, in that like many other markets it tends to a winner-take-all distribution. A very few people make a huge amount of money, and everyone else gets very little (the platform, like the House, always wins in the end). A person can get into a bad situation of chasing an income which will never materialize. The other side of the argument is that anything is better than nothing for the work.
For myself, it never seemed worth it (working subscription punditry, not OnlyFans). I'm not likely to be at the top of a pundit distribution, and scraping at the bottom was very unappealing. But everyone's individual circumstance is different.
However, there definitely seems to be a niche for academically-inclined liberal-bashing (no offense!). The general theme "The Mainstream Media Has A Liberal Bias" is like its love song, the same stuff can be redone over and over with slight variations. It does seem to be an expanding marketplace as far as I see (which is not a recommendation). It's entertainment at these levels, but there's a big world out there.
Good points. I think it would be difficult to argue that this blog is mostly about liberal bashing - but I’ll very much try not to get sucked into a tedious market where that content is rewarded.
I tried to pay but the system wouldn't take it.
What was the error message you got? I can look into it, in case this is a general issue.
Thanks - that's odd. I'm not sure why.
This is a fascinating discovery about a perplexing challenge, suggesting that some people see paying for access as proof of its value. (A freebee being implicitly worth what it costs, I suppose.) Still, I'm encouraged by the fact that sound writing and thinking can get the monetary--vice only moral--support it needs to go on. Congratulations on your work.
I concur that your "... essays are...substantive, attempting to improve the epistemic commons with thoughtful, evidence-based, and balanced contributions."
So naturally, I am pleased to be an annual subscriber to your feed, as well as to Hidden Brain, based here in The States.
Just yesterday I finished your prior post, and am only part way through its comments.
"In the “draft” section on my Substack, I have 126 posts, reflecting that I generally have far more things I am interested in writing about than I have time to blog." This reaffirms my suspicion you may be too cerebral to be in a romantic relationship with a person, but are rather in love with ideas. Not that there is anything wrong with the former. Despite it's high failure rate😉
Ha - thanks!
I'm in a romantic relationship (for 25 years now) with a person who also has a gross (144) of ideas for his (Swedish language only) blog that he would like to write, some day, sometime. My list of things I would write on my substack, if I get enough over illness to be willing to add another duty/obligation) is equally long. Those of us who are in love with ideas would like a more physical sort of love, too! see also: https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/looking-for-alice
The idea is to get the sort of love you want, not the sort that is easiest to get. I have no idea if Dan Williams is looking for love, but if he is, I wish that he may find someone who can appreciate him for who he is and what he does -- and the sooner the better.
There's no better evidence of a blog's success than multiple readers beginning to give him love life advice.
😂
Thank you for the additional reading recommendation, as well as correcting my general misperception😉
Cheers.
Any time. Escaping Flatland is *GREAT*.
I took a look at it. Sadly, it's not for my hardbitten, worldweary, cynical self. For example, this post: https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/sacrifice
"Two years after I began emailing essays into the void, I was contacted by the founder of a startup. He wanted me to write for them. He offered me $100k per year, which is about 5 times more than what I earn at the art gallery where I work part-time to pay the bills. I said thank you, but I wasn't interested. He took that as a negotiating tactic. I played along. After five minutes, he offered me $200k per year."
I disbelieve. No startup founder offers a *writer* $200k per year. Maybe for a writing department manager. Maybe he misheard, and it was something like "$200k of stock options". But $200k in actual money, for a startup writer, is not something plausible to me. And I know I'm being mean to fact-check the story like that.
But later on, good on him for revealing: "My salary from the blog is about $20k per year.". That I can believe. That's the sort of money we're talking about counting as a success.
Though it seems largely irrelevant whether true or not, I concur $200k per annum seems quite implausible.
On the flip side of the coin, using reason to judge whether irrational human activities occurred or not, tends toward counter-intuitiveness.
As noted elsewhere, I have never known anyone who embraces a decent facsimile of holistic reason. Even the best and smartest among us narrowly focus their intellect, while also typically exhibiting apathetic and or irrational highlights on important issues.
Thanks for making me feel more privileged, Dan! :-)
As an unrelated aside, I just now saw this on X, and immediately thought of you and one of your upcoming books.
As you will quickly discern, I am feeling a bit mischievous this morning here in the coastal Pacific Northwest, U.S.A.😉
https://x.com/zakijam/status/1825527564695421112