The Diff | Byrne Hobart | Substack

My content budget is finite. I only have so much time and money to indulge this very specific itch that Stratechery scratches. The other content in the bundle is extraneous. I could take it or leave it; and I can definitely substitute it with other entertainment.

I think the New York Times is its own thing, it’s going to keep being successful, but there’s a huge swath of the rest of the publishing industry that is being disrupted and will continue to be disrupted. If you look at publishers that exist in the world, because the Internet lets you reach everything, there’s probably space for the very best publi... See more

As with the hand-wringing over millennial cord-cutting, the limitations of supporting 10+ independent creators at $10 a month is similar to the impracticality of a Hulu, HBO, Criterion, Topic, Netflix and Amazon Prime subscription (phew). The pendulum has swung back to bundling–whether in a form like Every, or some sweet Atlantic media money.

Bundling is one of the next big ideas for platforms like Substack and bundles can make very obvious economic sense. But today - they typically require you to bundle platform and payment. This crytpo-economic model of tokenized essays however allows for a radical new way of bundling. Creators can bundle not at the platform layer (i.e. publishing at ... See more