Major news outlets have been really taking a hit as far as reliability and quality and this news sure isn’t helpful to the Washington Post on either one.
I’ll certainly be looking for Greg Sargent wherever is next for him.
Greg Sargent Announces He Is Taking Buyout and Leaving Washington Post-
https://www.mediaite.com/media/longtime-wapo-political-columnist-greg-sargent-is-leaving-after-taking-voluntary-buyout/
@TonyStark and further we move away from journalism. I hope he lands someplace credible....or creates one.
@mentallyalex He’s been a constant great source of information and analysis and I have relied on his work.
I hope so, too. I’m not even sure what’s left so creating something sounds good.
I'm wondering if there's a way to stitch together all the great work being produced by people who have disconnected from for-profit media companies via Substack, etc. into something more cohesive that folks could subscribe to.
I fear most folks can't afford to subscribe to a dozen or more separate writers but could handle a shared option.
@joeinwynnewood I saw someone mention web rings a few days ago and I was reminded of the old web.
Companies like substack are so empowering for writers and wordsmiths because it allows us to centralize and aggregate. Users can go to a digital mall, and roam aimlessly for their information.
Now that these companies have aligned with evil instead of service, we need to devise infrastructure that can reduce the technical overhead without the dependency of techbro philosophy of infinite growth and passing the buck.
I've heard there are a few alternatives showing up. @buttondown and others are stepping into the newsletter spaces. I have no idea if they are evil, tbf, but have begun reading about them as alternatives.
I'm hopeful we as a community will find a non-greed based model that is designed to better enrich humanity. Once that exists, I'm pretty confident they would be swimming in money from their unique stance alone.
@mentallyalex @joeinwynnewood @buttondown @TonyStark The best option for an independent writer is self-hosting a wordpress site with an RSS feed. That can be done for tens of dollars a month, and gives full control and full access to the userbase.
The question of how to make them discoverable, however, seems to plague many industries, not just writing...
The issue isn't finding the great voices... the issue is wading through the crap to get to them. But an open platform and curation are diametrically opposed concepts, and crowdsourced curation tends to lead to blowhards getting the spotlight.
Maybe there's room for a federated service where each author can recommend other authors so users can use that web of recommendations to discover new content...
@LouisIngenthron @mentallyalex @buttondown @TonyStark
The key issue for those who are writing for a living - the universe I was talking about - is subscription & payment management.
You can't do that self-hosting.
@joeinwynnewood @mentallyalex @buttondown @TonyStark Why not? I mean, of course you'd need to work with a third-party payment gateway, but you should be able to self-host and self-publish private subscriber-only content on your own. I'd be shocked if there wasn't a WordPress plugin that integrated with PayPal or something to do just that. It would take me less than a month to write such a system from scratch.
@LouisIngenthron @mentallyalex @buttondown @TonyStark
It's not just payment, it's every aspect of subscription management.
While I don't doubt at all your ability to code the required functionality, I am just as certain that none of the folks using Substack to make a living can.
If you want to put together a seamless, easy to navigate/use commercial system for them to use, I'll be happy to pass a link to the finished product along to the folks I subscribe to.
@joeinwynnewood @mentallyalex @buttondown @TonyStark I don't like to reinvent the wheel. After a cursory search, it looks like this already exists. Just add the plugin to a WordPress site and hook it up with a WooCommerce account.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/paid-member-subscriptions/
@LouisIngenthron @mentallyalex @buttondown @TonyStark
Appreciate you finding this, and I expect it still needs to be packaged into a product to be sold to content creators.
They aren't going to build their own WordPress web sites, install plugins and figure out the commerce account sitting behind it.
@joeinwynnewood @mentallyalex @buttondown @TonyStark It already is packaged into a product and sold, by many companies.
Looks like DreamHost (dreamhost.com) is a good option that's as cheap as $3/mo (but expect more like $15/mo for a proper professional site with email), and they're known for excellent customer service to help out with setup and such, and have a one-click installation.
In addition, WordPress has been around long enough that there's so much documentation online that the LLMs are pretty good at explaining it and troubleshooting.
Honestly, anyone who's tech savvy enough to browse the web should have no problem figuring out how to set this up over a single Saturday afternoon. And there are thousands of prebuilt themes too, so you don't need a professional designer or anything to get started.
@LouisIngenthron @mentallyalex @buttondown @TonyStark
Yes, I'm aware that there are companies out there that will put up or host WordPress sites and deploy whatever functionality you want, and that's not a 1-1 replacement for Substack, at least not unless we individually explain it to content creators, many if not most of whom will respond with a blank stare.
@joeinwynnewood @mentallyalex @buttondown @TonyStark See, but if they want someone else to manage and install it for them, and they need even that explained to them, do they really want to host it themselves at all?
Some people will pay lip service to independence and then turn around and make their entire living dependent on a single third-party chain link because it makes their lives more convenient.
We can educate people; that's not even hard... but nobody can make them want to break the chain.
It's the same thing as people who claim joining Mastodon is too complicated. At some point it's just an excuse for resisting change.
@LouisIngenthron @mentallyalex @buttondown @TonyStark
Who said they want to host it themselves?
They want what they have now without the Nazi tolerant, oligarchic owner.
Maybe a coop type model would work initiated by a few folks with a bit of technical capability.
@LouisIngenthron that sounds nice.
People who support others usually makes the world easier.
Cheerleaders in industry make things easier.
@joeinwynnewood @buttondown @TonyStark