The reason why I believe paid newsletters are going to be the future for writers is because they provide monthly subscription revenue. For example, I have no idea how much I’m going to earn every month on Medium. It’s the same problem I had when writing for Inc, where my earnings were tied to performance. When one of my articles goes viral, I make

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Bundling reacts to differentiated desires by creating a less differentiated publication that’s fairly valuable to everyone. But as the cost of the reader’s time rises, focus pays off. And the subscription newsletter model makes it easier than it’s ever been to profitably focus on exactly one topic, and build a one-person monopoly.

What’s interesting about newsletters is that consumers are willing to pay for them. While blogs have never really figured out monetization (apart from ads), Substack alone claims more than 50,000 paying subscribers.