Conversation

What do you call a newsletter writer? "Blogger" seems wrong even though the sector is trying to kill/substitute blogs and claim the term. "Writer" seems too broad. "Substacker" seems too specific to the market leading brand.
65
89
I think the broad unifying feature is that it is pseudo-public content built around individuals or cozyweb redoubts. Unless you're subscribed, you only get to see the public posts. There's something besides money-making to this access control. An element of discourse control.
2
18
Hmm... yeah, the difference between bloggers and newsletterers (I think we'll default to this out of convenience despite the awkwardness) is drawing a boundary around the discourse. It's like a small city state where a blog is more like a storefront for free stuff in a metro.
1
14
In a strange way, bloggers seem more commercial despite making less money. Newsletterers are ideologues for pay.
2
19
There's enough competition in the space that that's not accurate, plus normatively I don't like validating monopolistic brand-capture of a medium. Especially email which is at least still a cosmetic commons despite capture by gmail etc.
Quote Tweet
Replying to @vgr
eh, substacker is probably right it's a proprietary eponym, like how people user Kleenex instead of "tissue"
2
12
Replying to
I don't have hard numbers off hand, but we run a reading product and substack is certainly the majority (of solo writer newsletters) for our users!
2
1
Replying to
C'mon dude... that's a wildly non-representative sample. The people who use readwise are definitely NOT typical. The read-later world is a whole different thing.
1
1
Show replies