The passion of the posts

Very few creators, of course, will turn out like Dave Portnoy. And, of course, you don’t need to — there is lots of space between making a solid living writing on your own and selling your website to a publicly-traded gaming company.

The apparent limitation of the ad-supported media business model is that there will never be enough traffic to satisfy the beast. But while subscription revenue is stickier and gives creators more runway and short-term security, eventually the flame that started any new project will be extinguished. A new muse will need to be found.

The solopreneur evangelists tell us that these practicalities will eventually fall into place if you just do good work. The logic of a thousand true fans also supports this view. But the leaders in the passion economy show us that it takes a certain kind of creativity, a kind of transmutable enthusiasm across genres to make these projects work beyo... See more

Portnoy, for instance, has gone from Boston sports, to all sports, to sports betting, to pizza, to the stock market. His success has taken many forms over the last 17 years. What this means for myself and everyone else in the early innings of a newsletter project is that whatever we’re doing right now will eventually have to be reinvented on the fl... See more