It may be more likely to be pay-to-play. Design takes time and effort. Content creation takes time and effort. Everything that goes into a shiny digital footprint – website design, hosting, platform service subscriptions – costs money. Compare this to a random book club meet-up advertised through a single flyer made by hand and stapled to a few... See more

I've also noticed a trend in not just our space, but more apps requiring a paid element. So a good one that comes to mind is Monarch, the finance app. Mint shut down and it was free, and I think that was the major finance app for everybody. And so there have been a few other competitors that have popped up into this space, but more or less all of... See more

And you have to wrestle with the paywall and its very unfortunate trade-off. You want to share your work with the widest audience possible. But to any publication that’s too small for ads, free readers are simply not that valuable. For these reasons, I’ve always struggled with the paywall. Asking people to pay for writing is not a great way to make... See more