It’s interesting times for writers who are in it for the writing (I’m primarily that), rather than as a means to something else like money, influence, marketing, lead-gen, or as an information-products business like online courses (all of which I’ve done as a side effect)
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So long as you’re not about writing as an end in itself rather than a means, it’s totally a golden age. Great options for doing what you want to very effectively. Writing for the sake of writing is more mixed because temptations to solve for a valuable side effect are high.
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I think the trick is being clear what game you’re in now, what each piece of tech enables, and what tradeoffs are involved in each case. Since the tech supports all games. For example, Patreon solves for community building not writing. Mailchimp solves for marketing not writing.
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You're wrong about the long-term value of WordPress.
Its flexibility made it possible to build Stratechery in the first place, and its flexibility allowed me to extend my business model this last week.
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Every single writer on WordPress can follow what Stratechery did; if you're on a dedicated newsletter service, you're left crossing your fingers the platform will support you, with no alternative other than leaving.
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Like you I’ve been doing this for a very long time. 13 years and counting as a self-hosted Wordpress guy and a career built on it. Ours isn’t a shallow difference of opinions but different responses to the tradeoffs. Not something we can sort out on Twitter I think.
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I agree that WP isn't necessarily the right choice for everyone. There also wouldn't be choices for everyone had WP not existed in the first place.
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Sure. Like I said I’m still there for a set of features I like (not the same ones as you). I’m just neither willing to deal with arbitrary costs of flexibility, nor sentimental about WP/open-source. When the features/risks tradeoff points elsewhere as a better fit, I’ll move.
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As I mention in the article, I actually tried your stack briefly (memberful/mailchimp/WP) but gave up as not the right risk/effort/reward for me. I’m happy with the risk/effort/reward of substack and have moved appropriate projects there, leaving main blog on WP
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Yes, I get that. What you are missing is that Substack would not exist without WordPress, because it was WordPress that allowed for the creation of the model that Substack then made easy to use.
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I totally get that of course. I just don’t see why that’s relevant besides historical curiosity. In fact when I chatted with founders they explicitly acknowledged that! It’s like, sure, Android and MacOS wouldn’t be possible without Linux. Interesting, yeah, but so what?
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I think a space predicated on individuals has room for a product that lets individuals explore their creativity beyond simply words but also delivery and business model.
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