Media Entrepreneurship: Week 2

Substack has become a way for new writers and experienced journalists to make money directly from their readers via subscription based newsletters. This model has been undeniably successful for a not insignificant number of writers, who are now earning more than they could ever hope to make working for a traditional print or online publication. However, reading Is Email The Future Of Journalism made me wonder to what extent email newsletters rely on procrastination to remain popular.

I don’t necessarily know what I’m talking about here, but it seems to me that the typical person’s email inbox consists mainly of work related messages or spam, which tend to be boring, stress inducing, and generally something to be avoided, consciously or otherwise. Receiving an email containing articles about your hobbies or interests would of course be a welcome distraction from all that. It would be the one thing on that god-awful page of responsibilities that you actually want to click into. It could potentially take your mind off the stress of clicking the refresh button while you wait for something important to come in, and that’s great. However, I wonder how sustainable this is. Will people ever start recognizing newsletters as a distraction and decide to send them to a different email account that they rarely check. If so would that affect anything?

I like how Hamish McKenzie approaches this type of issue in What’s Next For Journalists. He acknowledges that Substack is still new, and that it may not work well for everyone. It obviously seems to work quite well for people who brought existing audiences to the platform, but I wonder if that could be skewing the results. It would be interesting to find out how difficult it is to start as a writer on Substack with no existing audience, and to build one from there alone. According to this article, Substack’s founders compare its model to the penny papers of the 1830s. However, a notable difference is that one cent during that time period would be equivalent to about 20 cents today. Substack’s lowest subscription fees seem to run about 5 dollars per week. So even an 1800’s news lover who bought a newspaper each day would still be paying the modern equivalent of less than two dollars per week. This also adds up, as a 5 dollar weekly Substack subscription would cost $275 per year, which may not be feasible for many people. In a way, I am not sure I understand how this model is workable yet.