Sure, subscription is awesome. Indie bloggers turning their daily entries into a multi-million dollar part time job is awesome. Substack has done us all a service by promoting this model.

But there is a HUGE caveat imo, which nobody seems to talk about. The quality.

The more you write, the less you read, that's just a fact. If you're pumping out 1,000 - 2,000 word essays every day, you're essentially just typing most of the time. Which is fine- lots of people are quite entertaining in and of themselves, and if they wish to monetize that, all the power to them.

But it's not an evolution of writing- it's just a different kind of gig. A very alluring gig, but different. When you're writing a book or even a substantial longread, you're aiming for a banger. You put thought into absolutely everything, because the time investment is that much higher. You're not just sharing thoughts- you're crafting a product.

It opens you to a much wider range of topics and forms of writing. You can - and are expected to - explore things on a much deeper level. A level that simply cannot be achieved in a daily news recap.

This is the part that saddens me most about subscription-based writing. People just don't try as hard. "Good" is good enough for most newsletter, and it's sad how they all seem to converge into a sort of news recap/ daily updates/ my 2 cents on current events type of thing.

The micro-level is just as important. When you're reading a good book - like a really good book - you can tell that the writer put their heart and soul into each and every sentence. You can just feel how much thought and effort went into expressing ideas in the most effective way possible. Whereas newsletters often feel like they've been written in a hurry. Sort of... diluted.