Conversation

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.
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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.
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In a strange way, bloggers seem more commercial despite making less money. Newsletterers are ideologues for pay.
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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.
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Replying to @vgr
eh, substacker is probably right it's a proprietary eponym, like how people user Kleenex instead of "tissue"
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Then do you have data? I see plenty of ghost, buttondown, and even good old mailchimp still going if you claim to be descriptive gotta back it with the numbers
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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!
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hmm yeah, i don't think our niche is actually tooo non-representative, but you might be right! i'm certainly excluding newsletters that are just pure marketing (lots of "influencers") and pseudo-companies like Morning Brew, Skimm, etc. I'm not sure if you mean to includes those
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