in praise of writing on the internet

1. I didn’t pick a niche . I have often admired and envied people who have their one thing —whether it’s literature, urban planning, art history, sociology, mathematics, architecture, software—because I have never been able to commit like that. The usual advice is to “niche down” if you want to build an audience for your newsletter, but trying to pic

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Readers don’t have short attention spans—they have short enchantment spans . There’s an infinite amount of content out there, and readers know it. The introduction convinces a reader that their finite time alive is best spent reading this piece in front of them , and not all the other things on the internet.

A lot has been written about how the internet radicalizes people. But the same dynamics that turn a slightly lonely young man into a seething misogynist—recommendation algorithms; social contexts that concentrate and intensify discourse—are also the dynamics that turn a young person who “likes reading” into someone who spends a year reading Proust,... See more

My high-level advice—which supersedes everything below—is that you should decide what you want from your writing, and then completely ignore any advice which detracts from this goal. This includes advice which is practically sound but psychologically destructive when it comes to sustaining motivation.

You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results...Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.3

A lot has been written about how the internet radicalizes people. But the same dynamics that turn a slightly lonely young man into a seething misogynist—recommendation algorithms; social contexts that concentrate and intensify discourse—are also the dynamics that turn a young person who “likes reading” into someone who spends a year reading Proust,... See more

Readers don’t have short attention spans—they have short enchantment spans .

some of the best newsletters offer “a particular attitude or perspective, a set of passions and interests, and even an ongoing process of ‘thinking through,’ to which subscribers are invited.”