I think Substack did a lot to pioneer the subscription model of newsletters. But I think those two models (ads or subscription) leave a lot of writers still without a great business model.

For example, here’s Ben Thompson from yesterday:“What is interesting is that Apple may give Substack cover to change course. [...] Substack can (justifiably) say to its publishers that it is going to offer an all-up Substack bundle for in-app purchase because that is the only way it can offer in-app purchase, and that publishers should agree to be... See more

In this case, Apple should both allow ClassPass to sell its classes via a webview (i.e. loading a webpage within its app), and also offer in-app purchases for, say, 10%; yes, that’s more expensive than credit card processing fees (which are ~$0.30+2.5%~2.9%, or around 6% of a $10 purchase), but the superiority of the user experience may convert... See more