Why would you be embarrassed about how much you make from it? It’s a direct window into the value you’re providing other people. I’m not a paid subscriber, but I’m considering it. You should be proud, not embarrassed of the money you make from it.
This will sound incredibly silly, but when I first discovered your blog the way I interpreted the onboarding message was "90% of the posts are free and subscribing is really a means of supporting the project or like connecting with other subscribers" it wasn't until recently I realized how many posts I was actually missing out on (And that is pushing me to subscribe now).
I don't know if that experience is unique to me (That i'm a dum dum) or if other newbies like me got the same impression. Figure I'd mention it as someone whose been reading for half-a-year.
I am strongly in favor of annual posts like this as opposed to
> their usual “please subscribe” popups and “teasers” of subscriber-only posts
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that, insofar you feel like you might be imposing with this post, you should take this as (N=1) confirmation that it really isn't much of an imposition at all.
A big perk of subscription is the OTs. I assume a lot of people initially subscribed because they loved the SSC open threads, but when they found substack open threads lacking they let their subscriptions expire.
I remember the NYT disturbance and pre-ACX uncertainties ... I'm really glad it worked out that well. Not very surprised maybe, but still glad. And yes, there should totally be more paid subscribers each year, not less.
I would like to renew my subscription, but due to sanctions, cards issued in Russia are blocked abroad and I assume that Substack simply cannot charge me for renewal.
I'd like to support the blog, and I can afford to pay 10$ a month. I just kinda refuse to pay 5-10$ per bonus article... I used to give 2 dollars per month on patreon I think, but that was shut down.
I pay for a subscription because I get value for my money. Yes, Scott makes a heck of a lot more money than I do, but I would rather donate to him than the NYT or the Irish Times or the other news sites that won't let me read articles online unless I pony up for a sub. He does a lot more to inform and entertain me than they do.
So yah boo to them, and huzzah for the Rightful Caliph!
There is so much substack content I would pay to read in principle, but in practice the minimum subscription amount of $5-$10 per month per substack adds up to more than I can afford (and more than I could read) when multiplied by the number of substackers I like. Has there been any talk of some kind alternative payment structure, not linked to individual substackers? I don't even know what that would look like, some kind of pay-per-article scheme, or you pay a monthly fee to access a certain number of articles per month across the platform?
Giving us just the names is cruel to people with high curiosity. I'm guessing "The Onion Knight" is not an essay about my favorite character Ser Davos Seaworth? (And if it is, can I just donate something to a charity of your choice for just that one article?)
The title "Current Affairs' Marxist Critique Of Toddler Show Blippi Isn't Marxist Enough" is one of the best titles I've seen of your articles, and I'm half tempted to pay $10 just to read that single article.
I'm curious: how do you deal with filing sales tax for states that charge sales tax for digital goods since some states consider out of state sellers to be liable for dealing with sales tax if they have 200 or more transactions from the state?
I've been considering a substack and asking them how to deal with sales tax but their support keeps telling me to ask a tax professional: with the problem that substack would need to provide me with the data needed to file any taxes. It doesn't seem worth the hassle to use substack if it risks getting in trouble if there is ever a crack down (perhaps driven by the mainstream media getting government to crack down on their newsletter competition).
I am tempted to go for 2.50 for the poor (hey, I am on zero salary for months now; our only regular income is child support for ze kids. We feed'em rice, mostly.) - Otoh, I am paid-subscribed now to Eric Hoel (he is young and needs the money - also brilliant) and Razib Kahn (he had a discount day and too many post pay-walled). - So, if your paid numbers next year are any worse than now, I shall join the laudable community of paid subscribers to S.A.S., the essayist. - Here is hoping for 100k free ACX-subscribers soon, as if that were enough to return my faith in humanity. ("Bukowski quote of your choice")
First I want to say thank you for including a list of some posts that I can read now that were hidden at the time they came out.
Secondly I want to give some inside into the reasons that motivated me to overcome the hurdle of signing up for the paid subscription. It was 100% FoMo. I’m using an rss reader and you get that headlines of the paywalled posts so I got courious. The first time my credit card was to far away to get it (about 4 meters), the second time it was in my pocket so I pulled it out and signed up.
How could I subscribe by check? I'm reluctant to use credit cards over the web.
That's not quite right, though correct. I'm reluctant to expose my credit card to each new domain. When a charity stops accepting donations by check, I stop donating, even if I've donated for decades.
Trying to think of a reminder that would be regular but not annoying...
Maybe put once in a while (e.g. once every three months), at the end of an Open Thread introduction, one extra paragraph containing one line: "by the way, you can also subscribe to ACX and get some extra paid content" + the subscribe button. The words "paid content" would be a hyperlink to some longer explanation, for example this article.
In my opinion, that would be completely non-annoying for old readers. If that paragraph/line always contained exactly the same text, they would even more easily skip it. But all the new readers would be notified that this option exists.
I subscribed a week ago after getting a raise and binged the locked posts, of which The Onion Knight was very, very good and was some of your best fiction. Enjoyed it a lot!
The fact that you asked Substack to remove those teasers and ads in itself makes me want to subscribe. But I already have more Substack reading than I can read in a reasonable amount of time so for now I’m staying with the free content. I cannot believe how much content you write, when you apparently also continue to work in your profession.
Don't, because everyone here that are constant *blog readers* of yours are already addicts of your writing that another post about whatever is a net-positive to them...
Alright. You got me. Wife is happy with the raise this year so her questions about why I subscribe to so many damn substacks have eased up. Also, this will make me less annoyed with myself when I try too hard to be funny in the comments.
Do you have an option for subscribing with crypto? The primary reason I am not a patron to most content I like is because I don't like it *enough* to give out my credit card and continue to support the broken legacy financial system. If I could subscribe with crypto I would be far more likely to throw money at you (or others) just to signal "this is good, I want to see more like this in the world".
Another way to put this:
I want to signal to the world that this sort of content is good.
I want to signal to the world that the legacy financial system is bad.
I want to signal to the world that crypto is good.
Sum of Above: Only subscribe to Astral Codex Ten if I can pay with crypto.
I don't see a $2.50 option. I see a $10, $8 discounted and $20 a month.
I would *love* to be a patron. But $10 is about double what I'm willing to spend.
(I happily support a few creators that have $3-5/mo tiers).
I don't think I'm special. So seems likely there are many other out there like me.
If you create a lower tier, some of the current $10 sponsors may downgrade. But I think you'd gain more $4 subscriber over time. Wether that makes up for the lost one... IDK.
Since I'm gambling with YOUR money, I'd say: take a chance! Live dangerously! Take a leap of faith.
I loved the onion knight! Seeing just the title is what made subscribe actually.
I have to confess - I saved a pdf version and shared with a couple of friends, when trying to spread the gospel of Scott Alexander, teaching about AI risk and as a gateway to help me convince them to read UNSONG. I hope I may be forgiven for my sins.
I woke up this morning and have decided by the newly found power invested in me by investing $10/month here that I should tell you to not feel embarrassed to create these posts and should instead look at them as an opportunity to do things that are fun like have a short story week, or contests, or something like that. Then if you feel guilty over being too rich you could do something like start the Scott Alexander Foundation for Children Who Need a Sandwich but Don’t Have One.
I’m sure with this one comment, I have now totally removed any lingering conflicted feelings you have about this.
I don't think you should be embarrassed but a bit confused why the price is so high if you are embarrassed. Personally $100 a year was just too much. but $30-$40 I would happily pay. Which is fine the price is what you set it and I can choose to pay or not pay, but I bet there are many others like me.
"Perpendicular lives" and "What your doctor spends" were wonderful posts and absolutely worth the subscription price; even more valuable, of course, is that most of your posts are open and I can share and discuss them with friends.
Question for paying subscriber ( and first of all THANK YOU) - how many other substacks do you pay for ? I find that I would consider paying for several, but can't seem to justify paying for as many as I read, so end up paying for zero.
Echoing some of the other comments here. The substack subscription options I see are typically too high and I cannot justify the cost. I admit that’s for irrational reasons not actually applied on the margin. Maybe if I really think about it I do get $100/yr worth of insights and good chuckles and a sense of community from reading your blog, Scott, but I *want* to subscribe to quite a few others. If I did so for as many substacks as I get value from and appreciate to a degree comparable to yours, like I do for podcasts, I’d actually be spending thousands of dollars a year. I just can’t make that work, so I don’t subscribe to any, I think out of a misplaced sense of fairness since I’d prefer to spread the love around. Concretely, I could probably justify something around a $25-35/yr model ($2-3/mo) for most substacks I really care about, with maybe one or two $5/mo tiers thrown in there if the option was available.
I think it’s a collective action problem that Substack itself must address, probably by changing default tiers and/or emphasizing lower cost subscription options for authors. If more substacks had lower tier default options (say, idk, $3/mo instead of $10) I suspect there would be way more money going around in aggregate.
Dang. I recently filled out the survey and said that I had never been a member and had no intention of becoming a member, and yet I just subscribed. Proof that I'm economically irrational, I guess.
I've been reading SSC/ACX since I was in high school (I'm now a post-uni "real adult"); I've definitely gotten way more that $100 value from your blogs + Unsong.
Was the one about the three idols a subscriber-only post? when I read that I thought "great, the subscription already paid off, everything that comes now is extra"
I'm surprised to see your concern about losing 10% of your subscribers after a single year and even moreso about your assumption that you will "continue losing ~10% per year indefinitely". I subscribe to some substacks and later discover I don't visit often enough, or enjoy the postings often enough, to keep going, so I cancel. That strikes me as completely normal behavior. (I hope I'm not overly flattering myself. :-) ) So I think you can expect it to be "two steps forward, one step back." In fact, you're ten steps forward and one step back, so count your blessings!
There's nothing wrong with sending out announcements like this one, though I wish you had skipped what seems to me to be the excessive introspection, apologetics, moralizing and analysis. Most of the comments seem to be about these (what I regard as) extrinsics — folks saying things like "There, there, Scott, don't feel bad about making a killing on your substack." I'm not sure you're asking to be petted, but that appears to have been the outcome.
One thing you might do that I would appreciate would be, at the end of each email (to both subscribers and non-subscribers who receive emails), to list how many open and how many closed postings you have put up over (say) the past year. That would at least let non-subscribers get a sense of what they are missing without trying to hit 'em in the heartstrings.
I enjoy the blog and don't mind paying for it. I can afford it, so that 's why I'm here. I don't read every posting and sometimes discover I've missed some I would have read. So I do go back and read a few of those. I can't keep up with reading them all and I'm amazed that you can keep up with writing them all.
You got me Scott. I've been free-riding on the assumption that you probably write this from a huge Bay Area mansion and don't need my pittance but all of those posts you unlocked are excellent and when I think about it I love this blog and your well worth the $100.
EA people please do not reply with your logical analyses of why I should have donated that $100 to some malaria-net charity and saved 3.7 children lives instead. I cancelled another subscription to pay Scott. No children will die of malaria as a result of this I promise.
>”but not so much that I can continue losing ~10% per year indefinitely.”
Yea, you absolutely can do that, and it’s insane that anyone would defend such a statement.
Estimating that 25% of your subs are on the cheap plan, you make $48,693.12 PER MONTH.
I live very happily on an income of $80k. Losing 10% per year, you’d reach my current income in 17 years. That’s an entire career. That’s enough time to have saved up investments to account for the lost income. I don’t care how much people make, but when rich people (and I consider myself rich) act like they’re on the edge of poverty it really grinds my gears. Blow me, bro.
Fine, you guilted me into subscribing... Just kidding well worth it. FWIW, my hesitancy in subscribing prior to now is a desire to see Substack do some sort of multi-subscription plan. I know that doesn’t mesh with Substack’s current business model and I’m not thinking through how it would work, but I don’t think I’m alone in resisting the splurge of paying for five or ten Substack subscriptions. This is my second paid subscription -- I’d be surprised if that ever doubled to four.
Please consider my $8.33 per month as a big thank you and as payment not for just the excellent articles, but even more for the wonderful job you have done moderating the comments so that they are worth reading as well.
1. There's no reason to feel bad for asking for subscriptions. People find your work valuable, and the ones that find it valuable enough are willing to pay for the bonus part of it.
2. You write "thousands of people bought subscriptions when I started the blog in January 2021, several hundred expired after a year in January 2022, and I expect several hundred more to expire this January" as if that's somehow an unexpected evil. But that's unsurprising and irrelevant, of course you're going to have turnover in subscriptions; the essential point is that the number of subscribers has been constant at around 6,000 for two years, and is likely to stay that way as long as you periodically ask for subscriptions.
3. You say that you're embarrassed by the amount of money you make from the blog, but you then go on to reveal how much you make. If you were actually embarrassed, you'd hide it. OTOH, if you were *guilty* about it, you would either make the blog free, cut the price, or donate a large fraction of the proceeds to charity (either conventional or EA). As it is, you get the money but seem to think that publicly emoting about it makes some sort of difference.
Why would you be embarrassed about how much you make from it? It’s a direct window into the value you’re providing other people. I’m not a paid subscriber, but I’m considering it. You should be proud, not embarrassed of the money you make from it.
This will sound incredibly silly, but when I first discovered your blog the way I interpreted the onboarding message was "90% of the posts are free and subscribing is really a means of supporting the project or like connecting with other subscribers" it wasn't until recently I realized how many posts I was actually missing out on (And that is pushing me to subscribe now).
I don't know if that experience is unique to me (That i'm a dum dum) or if other newbies like me got the same impression. Figure I'd mention it as someone whose been reading for half-a-year.
I am strongly in favor of annual posts like this as opposed to
> their usual “please subscribe” popups and “teasers” of subscriber-only posts
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that, insofar you feel like you might be imposing with this post, you should take this as (N=1) confirmation that it really isn't much of an imposition at all.
Good for you! Don’t be embarrassed, you do good work.
A big perk of subscription is the OTs. I assume a lot of people initially subscribed because they loved the SSC open threads, but when they found substack open threads lacking they let their subscriptions expire.
If I see correctly, you ommited your paid post about travelling through Europe? As an European, I thought it was great
i'd love to live in a world where you became a billionaire from this blog. I'm very happy to keep sending checks either way.
I remember the NYT disturbance and pre-ACX uncertainties ... I'm really glad it worked out that well. Not very surprised maybe, but still glad. And yes, there should totally be more paid subscribers each year, not less.
Whatever you do, please never send an article with 2-5 paragraphs preview and then paywall. I’m sure that’s effective but incredibly annoying.
Congratulations on all your success Scott and thanks for building a community that let me find internet friends.
Fuck yeah man
I would like to renew my subscription, but due to sanctions, cards issued in Russia are blocked abroad and I assume that Substack simply cannot charge me for renewal.
I'd like to support the blog, and I can afford to pay 10$ a month. I just kinda refuse to pay 5-10$ per bonus article... I used to give 2 dollars per month on patreon I think, but that was shut down.
Am I a stingy asshole?
I pay for a subscription because I get value for my money. Yes, Scott makes a heck of a lot more money than I do, but I would rather donate to him than the NYT or the Irish Times or the other news sites that won't let me read articles online unless I pony up for a sub. He does a lot more to inform and entertain me than they do.
So yah boo to them, and huzzah for the Rightful Caliph!
Impressive!
I'm at 160 paid subscribers
maybe this year I will hit 500 if I am lucky and work hard
WAGMI :)
I will subscribe if you promise to tell us how many people subscribed due to the subscription drive.
There is so much substack content I would pay to read in principle, but in practice the minimum subscription amount of $5-$10 per month per substack adds up to more than I can afford (and more than I could read) when multiplied by the number of substackers I like. Has there been any talk of some kind alternative payment structure, not linked to individual substackers? I don't even know what that would look like, some kind of pay-per-article scheme, or you pay a monthly fee to access a certain number of articles per month across the platform?
I think you're missing https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/which-is-bigger-256000-or-a-deer! (The date says Dec 1, 2022.)
Giving us just the names is cruel to people with high curiosity. I'm guessing "The Onion Knight" is not an essay about my favorite character Ser Davos Seaworth? (And if it is, can I just donate something to a charity of your choice for just that one article?)
The title "Current Affairs' Marxist Critique Of Toddler Show Blippi Isn't Marxist Enough" is one of the best titles I've seen of your articles, and I'm half tempted to pay $10 just to read that single article.
I'm curious: how do you deal with filing sales tax for states that charge sales tax for digital goods since some states consider out of state sellers to be liable for dealing with sales tax if they have 200 or more transactions from the state?
I've been considering a substack and asking them how to deal with sales tax but their support keeps telling me to ask a tax professional: with the problem that substack would need to provide me with the data needed to file any taxes. It doesn't seem worth the hassle to use substack if it risks getting in trouble if there is ever a crack down (perhaps driven by the mainstream media getting government to crack down on their newsletter competition).
I am tempted to go for 2.50 for the poor (hey, I am on zero salary for months now; our only regular income is child support for ze kids. We feed'em rice, mostly.) - Otoh, I am paid-subscribed now to Eric Hoel (he is young and needs the money - also brilliant) and Razib Kahn (he had a discount day and too many post pay-walled). - So, if your paid numbers next year are any worse than now, I shall join the laudable community of paid subscribers to S.A.S., the essayist. - Here is hoping for 100k free ACX-subscribers soon, as if that were enough to return my faith in humanity. ("Bukowski quote of your choice")
Re Jason Shea: this should really be tried with ChatGPT!
I am a paid subscriber since about two month.
First I want to say thank you for including a list of some posts that I can read now that were hidden at the time they came out.
Secondly I want to give some inside into the reasons that motivated me to overcome the hurdle of signing up for the paid subscription. It was 100% FoMo. I’m using an rss reader and you get that headlines of the paywalled posts so I got courious. The first time my credit card was to far away to get it (about 4 meters), the second time it was in my pocket so I pulled it out and signed up.
Who’s the guy in the photo?
How could I subscribe by check? I'm reluctant to use credit cards over the web.
That's not quite right, though correct. I'm reluctant to expose my credit card to each new domain. When a charity stops accepting donations by check, I stop donating, even if I've donated for decades.
>>I make an embarrassingly large amount of money from this blog<<
This is good to hear!
This means that a publishing model which allows excellent unfiltered opinion is available and vital.
I greatly appreciate the free option. Most of my modest income goes to helping Haitians and Dominicans around me in the DR.
Peter
For anyone on the fence: The Onion Knight alone is worth the cost.
Trying to think of a reminder that would be regular but not annoying...
Maybe put once in a while (e.g. once every three months), at the end of an Open Thread introduction, one extra paragraph containing one line: "by the way, you can also subscribe to ACX and get some extra paid content" + the subscribe button. The words "paid content" would be a hyperlink to some longer explanation, for example this article.
In my opinion, that would be completely non-annoying for old readers. If that paragraph/line always contained exactly the same text, they would even more easily skip it. But all the new readers would be notified that this option exists.
I subscribed a week ago after getting a raise and binged the locked posts, of which The Onion Knight was very, very good and was some of your best fiction. Enjoyed it a lot!
The fact that you asked Substack to remove those teasers and ads in itself makes me want to subscribe. But I already have more Substack reading than I can read in a reasonable amount of time so for now I’m staying with the free content. I cannot believe how much content you write, when you apparently also continue to work in your profession.
> I feel awkward doing a subscription drive
Don't, because everyone here that are constant *blog readers* of yours are already addicts of your writing that another post about whatever is a net-positive to them...
Happy subscriber here. Heartily recommend the warm glow.
Your insightful discourse is a bargain 🙏🏽
Well you crack me up - you
Wicked funny = subscribe
Alright. You got me. Wife is happy with the raise this year so her questions about why I subscribe to so many damn substacks have eased up. Also, this will make me less annoyed with myself when I try too hard to be funny in the comments.
Do you have an option for subscribing with crypto? The primary reason I am not a patron to most content I like is because I don't like it *enough* to give out my credit card and continue to support the broken legacy financial system. If I could subscribe with crypto I would be far more likely to throw money at you (or others) just to signal "this is good, I want to see more like this in the world".
Another way to put this:
I want to signal to the world that this sort of content is good.
I want to signal to the world that the legacy financial system is bad.
I want to signal to the world that crypto is good.
Sum of Above: Only subscribe to Astral Codex Ten if I can pay with crypto.
I don't see a $2.50 option. I see a $10, $8 discounted and $20 a month.
I would *love* to be a patron. But $10 is about double what I'm willing to spend.
(I happily support a few creators that have $3-5/mo tiers).
I don't think I'm special. So seems likely there are many other out there like me.
If you create a lower tier, some of the current $10 sponsors may downgrade. But I think you'd gain more $4 subscriber over time. Wether that makes up for the lost one... IDK.
Since I'm gambling with YOUR money, I'd say: take a chance! Live dangerously! Take a leap of faith.
The Onion Knight is brilliant!
I loved the onion knight! Seeing just the title is what made subscribe actually.
I have to confess - I saved a pdf version and shared with a couple of friends, when trying to spread the gospel of Scott Alexander, teaching about AI risk and as a gateway to help me convince them to read UNSONG. I hope I may be forgiven for my sins.
I woke up this morning and have decided by the newly found power invested in me by investing $10/month here that I should tell you to not feel embarrassed to create these posts and should instead look at them as an opportunity to do things that are fun like have a short story week, or contests, or something like that. Then if you feel guilty over being too rich you could do something like start the Scott Alexander Foundation for Children Who Need a Sandwich but Don’t Have One.
I’m sure with this one comment, I have now totally removed any lingering conflicted feelings you have about this.
I don't think you should be embarrassed but a bit confused why the price is so high if you are embarrassed. Personally $100 a year was just too much. but $30-$40 I would happily pay. Which is fine the price is what you set it and I can choose to pay or not pay, but I bet there are many others like me.
I’ve just paid up. Anybody got recommendations from pre 2022, for paid content.
"Perpendicular lives" and "What your doctor spends" were wonderful posts and absolutely worth the subscription price; even more valuable, of course, is that most of your posts are open and I can share and discuss them with friends.
Question for paying subscriber ( and first of all THANK YOU) - how many other substacks do you pay for ? I find that I would consider paying for several, but can't seem to justify paying for as many as I read, so end up paying for zero.
Dying to read the extra-Marxist critique of Blippi omg
Echoing some of the other comments here. The substack subscription options I see are typically too high and I cannot justify the cost. I admit that’s for irrational reasons not actually applied on the margin. Maybe if I really think about it I do get $100/yr worth of insights and good chuckles and a sense of community from reading your blog, Scott, but I *want* to subscribe to quite a few others. If I did so for as many substacks as I get value from and appreciate to a degree comparable to yours, like I do for podcasts, I’d actually be spending thousands of dollars a year. I just can’t make that work, so I don’t subscribe to any, I think out of a misplaced sense of fairness since I’d prefer to spread the love around. Concretely, I could probably justify something around a $25-35/yr model ($2-3/mo) for most substacks I really care about, with maybe one or two $5/mo tiers thrown in there if the option was available.
I think it’s a collective action problem that Substack itself must address, probably by changing default tiers and/or emphasizing lower cost subscription options for authors. If more substacks had lower tier default options (say, idk, $3/mo instead of $10) I suspect there would be way more money going around in aggregate.
Dang. I recently filled out the survey and said that I had never been a member and had no intention of becoming a member, and yet I just subscribed. Proof that I'm economically irrational, I guess.
I've been reading SSC/ACX since I was in high school (I'm now a post-uni "real adult"); I've definitely gotten way more that $100 value from your blogs + Unsong.
Comment on my blog and I'll think about it.
Was the one about the three idols a subscriber-only post? when I read that I thought "great, the subscription already paid off, everything that comes now is extra"
[SA discovers churn, takes the marketing black pill ]
I'm surprised to see your concern about losing 10% of your subscribers after a single year and even moreso about your assumption that you will "continue losing ~10% per year indefinitely". I subscribe to some substacks and later discover I don't visit often enough, or enjoy the postings often enough, to keep going, so I cancel. That strikes me as completely normal behavior. (I hope I'm not overly flattering myself. :-) ) So I think you can expect it to be "two steps forward, one step back." In fact, you're ten steps forward and one step back, so count your blessings!
There's nothing wrong with sending out announcements like this one, though I wish you had skipped what seems to me to be the excessive introspection, apologetics, moralizing and analysis. Most of the comments seem to be about these (what I regard as) extrinsics — folks saying things like "There, there, Scott, don't feel bad about making a killing on your substack." I'm not sure you're asking to be petted, but that appears to have been the outcome.
One thing you might do that I would appreciate would be, at the end of each email (to both subscribers and non-subscribers who receive emails), to list how many open and how many closed postings you have put up over (say) the past year. That would at least let non-subscribers get a sense of what they are missing without trying to hit 'em in the heartstrings.
I enjoy the blog and don't mind paying for it. I can afford it, so that 's why I'm here. I don't read every posting and sometimes discover I've missed some I would have read. So I do go back and read a few of those. I can't keep up with reading them all and I'm amazed that you can keep up with writing them all.
Cheers,
-P.
You got me Scott. I've been free-riding on the assumption that you probably write this from a huge Bay Area mansion and don't need my pittance but all of those posts you unlocked are excellent and when I think about it I love this blog and your well worth the $100.
EA people please do not reply with your logical analyses of why I should have donated that $100 to some malaria-net charity and saved 3.7 children lives instead. I cancelled another subscription to pay Scott. No children will die of malaria as a result of this I promise.
>”but not so much that I can continue losing ~10% per year indefinitely.”
Yea, you absolutely can do that, and it’s insane that anyone would defend such a statement.
Estimating that 25% of your subs are on the cheap plan, you make $48,693.12 PER MONTH.
I live very happily on an income of $80k. Losing 10% per year, you’d reach my current income in 17 years. That’s an entire career. That’s enough time to have saved up investments to account for the lost income. I don’t care how much people make, but when rich people (and I consider myself rich) act like they’re on the edge of poverty it really grinds my gears. Blow me, bro.
Fine, you guilted me into subscribing... Just kidding well worth it. FWIW, my hesitancy in subscribing prior to now is a desire to see Substack do some sort of multi-subscription plan. I know that doesn’t mesh with Substack’s current business model and I’m not thinking through how it would work, but I don’t think I’m alone in resisting the splurge of paying for five or ten Substack subscriptions. This is my second paid subscription -- I’d be surprised if that ever doubled to four.
For those who bought subscription and want to catch up, there is list of all subscriber-only articles:
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/open-thread-2575/comment/11969135
Please consider my $8.33 per month as a big thank you and as payment not for just the excellent articles, but even more for the wonderful job you have done moderating the comments so that they are worth reading as well.
I'd like to, but if I subscribed to every substack where I thought "hey I like this and I'd like to support them", I'd be spending $200/month.
Claro Amigo
If you give people the first paragraphs of locked posts they’re more likely to subscribe
Three points, I think:
1. There's no reason to feel bad for asking for subscriptions. People find your work valuable, and the ones that find it valuable enough are willing to pay for the bonus part of it.
2. You write "thousands of people bought subscriptions when I started the blog in January 2021, several hundred expired after a year in January 2022, and I expect several hundred more to expire this January" as if that's somehow an unexpected evil. But that's unsurprising and irrelevant, of course you're going to have turnover in subscriptions; the essential point is that the number of subscribers has been constant at around 6,000 for two years, and is likely to stay that way as long as you periodically ask for subscriptions.
3. You say that you're embarrassed by the amount of money you make from the blog, but you then go on to reveal how much you make. If you were actually embarrassed, you'd hide it. OTOH, if you were *guilty* about it, you would either make the blog free, cut the price, or donate a large fraction of the proceeds to charity (either conventional or EA). As it is, you get the money but seem to think that publicly emoting about it makes some sort of difference.