The app for independent voices
Just read the New York Times story on newsletter subscriptions. Oh man, I felt like it really missed the point (but it also made me think a whole bunch of sorta overlapping, slightly contradictory thoughts at once):
It is legitimately really hard and expensive for folks to support all of the writers whom they love and value.
Related to that, this is a weird, tenuous, emergent moment for so many writers. The old way to make a living (you know, a day job, at a publication) is increasingly dead, and while so many of our lives have been positively changed by individual subscription models (and we are immensely grateful for all the readers who support us), there’s a ton of baked-in precarity to having to pass the cup with every new essay just to keep your income steady.
Obviously, there are alternative routes here, ones that I believe in (more writers gathering in worker’s cooperatives like Defector or Flaming Hydra), but those are easy to praise but also hard to build in practice (especially when you’re not like the Defector crew, a clearly defined group of writers with tightly bound relationships leaving the same workplace at the same time). Would I love to be a part of a writer’s collective with the right mix of big and emerging names, with enough collective juice to survive the initial risk of forgoing our individual careers? Hell yeah, and I bet a lot of people would, but that doesn’t make it easy.
So in the meantime, we’re here, in a thin ice moment for both writers and readers. And in that moment, the Times writes a story that’s essentially “I bet you’re paying too much for newsletters! And you should solve that problem!” which is super weird framing on a lot of levels [one of the biggies: there’s an implicit individualistic blaming frame both towards consumers (“you dummies aren’t paying attention to your spending” and writers “you’re grifting off of people who aren’t paying careful attention to their credit card statements”)]. What a bummer!
What kind of story would I have loved instead? A. One that celebrated the immense generosity that readers have shown to writers in the last few years (we have asked one another- please support me, and it’s a beautiful miracle that so many have said yes) and that also B. Explored the tricky financial bind that so many writers and consumers of writing are in (we want to support so much more! But it’s tough!) and of course C. Connected the dots to the broader structural forces that have left us to disproportionally weather this storm as individuals (capitalism, of course, and in particular the destruction of media, but also the incentive structure of the new platforms- esp this one- which have made a bet that leaderboards that put us against each other are better for their bottom line than tech tools like subscription bundles we can offer w/ newsletter pals).
That’s all to say, it’s hard out here, for writers and readers, and I often feel guilty for not putting more energy into devising collectivist solutions myself. In the meantime, though, guess what! I pay for a TON of newsletters. With pride! And while I do rotate every year to support new ones, and while there are tough choices to be made, when I look to my budget for belt tightening purposes, I don’t first look to one of the best ways I currently have of showing other writers I love them.
As for the people who make the (not at all small) choice to give me a modest career by paying for my writing: holy crap I still haven’t figured out how to express my gratitude!
One final aside: I did love that the article started with a member of Anne Helen Petersen’s truly beautiful reader community, because in this weird, emergent moment Anne has been one of our best models for how to be a “rising tide lifts all boats” team player (by teaching her readers the value of supporting writing, by constantly promoting writers, and by coaching many of us when we made the jump to doing this for a living). It’s tough out there, friends, but that’s all the more reason to be thankful for all those around us making it a bit easier.