As the rest of the internet gets overtaken by bots and AI-generated content and oligarch-owners livestreaming megalomaniacal presidential candidates, the self-contained publications controlled entirely by professional humans win out.

There is a clear pattern for all four companies [Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google]: each controls, to varying degrees, the entry point for customers to the category in which they compete. This control of the customer entry point, by extension, gives each company power over the companies actually supplying what each company “sells”, whether that be... See more

If you look at any one Substack newsletter in comparison to its peers, it does appear banal and repetitive. But they are not experienced as a landscape; they are experienced individually. Each one is its own tiny world.

The center of gravity is missing, so we seek out any foothold, any source of a perspective.

People will pay for the convenience of not poring through internet sludge all day and having someone clarify what they need to know.”

There is a competition going on for authority online — not just authority in a particular subject matter, like politics or finance, but the authority to provide a comprehensive view of what matters on the internet, pointing out what to pay to attention to.

Publications, whether massive or tiny, are platforms now. Audiences will choose a small number and become very loyal to them. Thus news publications will perform more and more aggregation as a service.

“People will pay for the convenience of not poring through internet sludge all day and having someone clarify what they need to know.” Exactly! No one wants internet sludge. They want clarity and bullet points, which is why you can charge for aggregation.