For the last couple years whenever I see a longform piece I really want to read, I try to force myself to wait & go buy the print issue,
Print is a rent strike, yes. And print is a retention tool, also. And reading periodicals feels luxurious, certainly.
And nostalgic, fair enough.
But also…
Matt Seybold
I have this desire to have my economic behavior accurately reflect my conscious tastes, not just fractions of cents cascading off my absent-minded browsing.
Something I miss about newsstand culture is that longform writing sold sticker-price products.
People paid a premium on the promise of…
…the conventional wisdom of publishing somewhat.
Take culture would hardly go away, but some publications would decide it’s feasible to specialize in longform, & not have to invest continuously in clickbait to generate revenue from ads, trial subs, data-harvesting, etc.
Reread this Lanchester piece yesterday. No reason.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
One thing I WILL criticize US educators for is that we have thousands of ed researchers & public scholars across thousands of institutions, many with extensive publishing capacity, & yet we frequently act like we must count on sportswriters, business reporters, & influencers to tell our stories.
…that author they trusted, that profile they couldn’t miss, that deep dive they were waiting for.
I would love to see one major legacy brand go all-in on à la carte, charging, say, $0.25 for the 1200-word OpEd, but $2.50 for the 8,000-word investigation
This model would, I think, change…
