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Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hell and welcome to Better Offline.

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Speaker 3: I'm, of course your host ed zetron as ever, and

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Speaker 3: today I am joined by the incredible critic and author

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Speaker 3: of the Citation Needed newsletter Molly. Why Molly, thank you

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Speaker 3: for joining me, Thanks for having me. So you generally

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Speaker 3: seem to this is a strange way to put it.

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Speaker 3: Actually love the internet can be like like you're mad

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Speaker 3: at what they've done to it, but you actually enjoy

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Speaker 3: the computer quite a lot.

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Speaker 4: Yes, big fan of the computer over here.

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Speaker 3: You wrote this fantastic thing about RSS, and I think

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Speaker 3: like a lot of people kind of have the idea

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Speaker 3: it's a feed. Can you walk people through exactly what

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Speaker 3: our SS is and why you like it so much?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? So, RSS is just a protocol. It's sort of

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Speaker 4: a system by which websites can make their content available

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Speaker 4: to be ingested by programs called feed readers, which are

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Speaker 4: websites or applications or you know, can be an app

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Speaker 4: on your phone where you can pull together feeds from

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Speaker 4: any number of sources, whether it's the newsletters you follow,

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Speaker 4: the news organizations that you subscribe to, podcasts, YouTube videos,

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Speaker 4: massed on feeds, any sort of feed like structure can

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Speaker 4: be pulled into these feed readers, and then you can

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Speaker 4: read them anytime you want, on your own time, without

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Speaker 4: you know, going to the substack app, opening your massed

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Speaker 4: on account, you know, going to wired dot com. And

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Speaker 4: it's a really wonderful way to interact with the web

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Speaker 4: these days, because it's sort of radically different from how

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Speaker 4: a lot of uh are online or actions have become

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Speaker 4: this sort of abusive you know, wrestling match with whatever

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Speaker 4: it is that you're trying to read. You know, the

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Speaker 4: content appears there. There's usually no ads in your RSS feed.

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Speaker 4: There's not any goodhead.

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Speaker 3: And is it like you could you said, you can

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Speaker 3: put Mastodon posts and Bluesky into it, like you can

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Speaker 3: have your social feeds in that too.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: A ton of different services provide RSS feeds, sometimes without

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Speaker 4: people even realizing it, so pretty much any WordPress site

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Speaker 4: will publish an RSS feed. Every ghost blog has an

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Speaker 4: RSS feed by default. Substack has RSS on by default.

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Speaker 4: There are other you know, content management systems where it's

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Speaker 4: either on by default or easily enabled with a click

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Speaker 4: or so. And the real benefit to the person using

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Speaker 4: an RSS reader is that you don't don't have to

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Speaker 4: rely on the sort of algorithmic feeds that we have

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Speaker 4: become accustomed to, where you know, if you go to

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Speaker 4: Twitter and you just want to see, you know, news

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Speaker 4: articles written by the journalists that you chose to follow, there,

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Speaker 4: chances are you're not going to see that. You're going

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Speaker 4: to see Twitter ads, You're going to see rage bait

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Speaker 4: that's being boosted.

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Speaker 2: By the algorithm four or five. That kind of yeah, like.

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Speaker 4: Elon Musk's posts always show up even though you don't

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Speaker 4: follow him, right, and then the journalists that you did

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Speaker 4: go out of your way to follow, the chances are

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Speaker 4: you're not going to see the news articles they wrote

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Speaker 4: because Twitter do downranks links, and so.

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Speaker 2: That's the same thing with threats as well, I think.

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Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean it's extent Facebook. I mean, a

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Speaker 4: lot of social media websites have started down ranking links

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Speaker 4: to try to convince people to stay on the platforms

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Speaker 4: rather than going to wherever people actually publish their work.

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Speaker 4: And it's this horrendous situation for both publishers and readers.

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Speaker 4: And so you could sort of opt out of it

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Speaker 4: by using RSS to follow these things very directly and

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Speaker 4: avoid a lot of the surveillance and a lot of

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Speaker 4: the you know, sort of abusive practices that we're increasingly

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Speaker 4: seeing on platforms.

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Speaker 2: And do they still get the traffic?

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Speaker 3: So that was that's the one thing with ours that

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Speaker 3: they've really been able to get my hangof, because I know,

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Speaker 3: I don't get subscribers like I won't get like reads,

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Speaker 3: which is fine, but does this does this not like

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Speaker 3: slightly disadvantaged publishers and suppurse they haven't turned it off?

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Speaker 4: Well, it depends a lot on how a publisher makes

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Speaker 4: their money. So for example, I write a newsletter. People

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Speaker 4: can pay to subscribe to my newsletter, and it's really

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Speaker 4: no different to me if they read it in their

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Speaker 4: email inbox, if they come to my website, or if

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Speaker 4: they you know, read it in their RSS reader. You know,

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Speaker 4: it's sort of all the same. And then people who

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Speaker 4: publish Paywalt's content can an opt to have either excerpts

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Speaker 4: of their posts published on their RSS feeds or increasingly

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Speaker 4: we're starting to see people create subscriber RSS feeds so

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Speaker 4: that if you do yep, and you know, I subscribe

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Speaker 4: to four or four media and so I have a

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Speaker 4: specific RSS feed that I can follow there that gives

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Speaker 4: me the full text articles and so you know that's

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Speaker 4: a way in which publishers can still earn money through

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Speaker 4: subscriptions while offering RSS feeds. The place where it can

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Speaker 4: be challenging is ads supported, you know, publishers where they

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Speaker 4: really rely on you visiting the website to get the

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Speaker 4: AD traffic. And so you'll often see ads supported publishers

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Speaker 4: publishing excerpts from their RSS feeds, but not full text,

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Speaker 4: meaning that if you're following them in a feed reader,

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Speaker 4: you still have to open the page and it takes

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Speaker 4: you to the website and they get the traffic. And

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Speaker 4: so that's how a lot of those sites get around it.

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Speaker 4: But there are websites that basically decide that it's you know,

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Speaker 4: sort of a lost leader. It's like the Costco retissory chicken.

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Speaker 4: It gets people in the door, even if they lose

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Speaker 4: some AD revenue. You know, you're still seeing their material

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Speaker 4: more that you might not otherwise, you're still visiting the site,

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Speaker 4: you might sign up for a subscription, whatever it might be,

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Speaker 4: And so they sort of decided it's a worthwhile trade off.

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Speaker 3: And you use innerader, right I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: you mentioned this is a really specific one. But I

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Speaker 3: saw on your piece you were saying you no longer

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Speaker 3: recommend Feedley. And I've heard Feedley mentioned a few times.

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Speaker 2: Why is that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So I used to use Feedley, and I used

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Speaker 4: to recommend them pretty widely. You know, they were doing

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Speaker 4: they had a very nice, full featured RSS reader, and

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Speaker 4: then they sort of started to pivot in ways that

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Speaker 4: were a little bit uncomfortable, where it was very clear

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Speaker 4: that they were targeting you know, cybersecurity recres a lot

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Speaker 4: of the time and very like corporate uh you know people. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: it was a very odd like subset of traffic where

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Speaker 4: they were constantly trying to help me, like follow threats

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Speaker 4: online and stuff like that. Yes, they and then so

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Speaker 4: but that was fine, you know, I was like, Okay,

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Speaker 4: I'm not the demographic for this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they've just changed their business.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, except that once they after they did that for

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Speaker 4: a little bit, I started to get promotions about tracking

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Speaker 4: strikes and it was all about monitoring where there might

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Speaker 4: be strikes happening.

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Speaker 2: Oh and it.

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Speaker 4: There they they say that they sort of yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 4: They tried to sort of after I, you know, wrote

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Speaker 4: to them a little bit about this, they tried to

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Speaker 4: sort of play it off as like bad messaging and

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Speaker 4: that they were really just trying to help people protect.

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Speaker 2: Their help people strike.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it definitely came off as sort of strike breaking

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Speaker 4: as a service, and I decided I was done with

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Speaker 4: feed ley finally. Yeah, right, what we've all been waiting for.

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Speaker 4: But I mean, the one thing I really love about

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Speaker 4: RSS is that you know, it's a protocol, it's not

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Speaker 4: a service that you're locked into, and so it's actually

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Speaker 4: very easy to switch RSS readers if one of them

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Speaker 4: decides that it's going to start surveilling strikes.

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Speaker 2: That's a good question.

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Speaker 3: How does how do you so if you sit and

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Speaker 3: I really I'll be linking to this piece conspicuously or

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Speaker 3: excellent rss pace, but how do you move? Was actually

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Speaker 3: one of my questions.

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Speaker 4: It's incredibly easy. Pretty much every RSS reader allows you

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Speaker 4: to export all of the RSS feeds that you follow,

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Speaker 4: and it's just a simple XML file. It's the same

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Speaker 4: thing that I used to publish my blog role in

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Speaker 4: my website. So if you're curious, like what blogs I read,

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Speaker 4: I just export those, you know, folders into a PML

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Speaker 4: file is with what it's called, and then I put

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Speaker 4: in on my website.

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Speaker 3: But the same just just open that file in Yeah,

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Speaker 3: what inner reader or what have you?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 4: And it took me probably ten seconds to switch from

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Speaker 4: Feebley to my new very readers. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Wow, there is there's some stuff in the Internet that

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Speaker 3: works still.

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Speaker 2: It's magic.

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Speaker 3: And having you want here to talk about RSS was

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Speaker 3: important because first of all, people say I complain all

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Speaker 3: the time, and they are right, and it's just it's

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Speaker 3: nice to see that there are still some functional parts

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Speaker 3: of the Internet. Is there other other parts that you

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Speaker 3: actually like, other feet things like I don't know, RSS

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Speaker 3: that you use regularly that could make make the world's

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Speaker 3: make our listeners internet world's a little bit better.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think it's all part of a

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Speaker 4: theme of sort of avoiding these intermediaries that have these

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Speaker 4: incredibly extractive relationships with both the users and you know

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Speaker 4: and off publishers who are on, you know, the other

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Speaker 4: side of that relationship. And so I do everything I

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Speaker 4: can to sort of avoid those intermediaries where possible, and so,

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Speaker 4: you know, for example, I write a newsletter. I use

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Speaker 4: the Ghost newsletter software, where you know, the relationship that

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Speaker 4: I have with the people who subscribe to me is

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Speaker 4: very direct. You know, people are subscribing to Molly White,

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Speaker 4: the writer, They're not subscribing to ghost the website that

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Speaker 4: then you know, danes to give me a cut of

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Speaker 4: whatever they're taking in, which is unlike some of the

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Speaker 4: other services out there, for example Patreon, where you know,

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Speaker 4: if you set up a Patreon account, everyone is actually

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Speaker 4: in a financial relationship with Patreon, not with you, and

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Speaker 4: so if you decide to leave, it can be incredibly

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Speaker 4: challenging to move people to another service, whereas with Ghosts,

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Speaker 4: if I want to leave, I can just set up

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Speaker 4: somewhere else, I can export my subscribers. The financial relationships

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Speaker 4: are already just directly with me, and so that's a

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Speaker 4: very powerful thing, the sort of escape hatch, where now

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Speaker 4: if Ghosts decides, you know, hey, maybe we're gonna i

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Speaker 4: don't know, slap ads on everyone's newsletter without them agreeing

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Speaker 4: to it, they now have this incentive on the other end,

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Speaker 4: which is like, well, Molly and all the other people

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Speaker 4: who publish with ghost might not like that, and they

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Speaker 4: might just leave because they can, whereas other services that

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Speaker 4: have more of a locked in relationship can make those

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Speaker 4: decisions and take the gamble that well, it's so hard

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Speaker 4: to leave that people are probably just going to put

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Speaker 4: up with it, and so that's that's one place where

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Speaker 4: I do that. You know, there are sort of other

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Speaker 4: services throughout the web that you know, are sort of

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Speaker 4: similar where I try to keep the intermediaries to a

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Speaker 4: bare minimum.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I used Ghost myself when I used outposts from They're

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Speaker 3: very good.

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Speaker 2: It's basically it's.

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Speaker 3: One of the things I actually like about Ghost is

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Speaker 3: that you can build a company on top of it,

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Speaker 3: and the company is just, hey, we'll provide some of

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Speaker 3: those slick little features that you get from a substack

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Speaker 3: or what have you, like following up with people if

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Speaker 3: their credit cards expired or what have you. But it's

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Speaker 3: and it's also for giant babies like me who can't

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Speaker 3: do code.

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Speaker 2: I didn't vibe coded, I swear.

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Speaker 3: But thinking of Substack, I've never seen a company go

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Speaker 3: quite as weirdly as them, putting aside on them obvious

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Speaker 3: promotions of nazis. It feels as if substack has just

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Speaker 3: turned into another dogshit social network.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean substack is a weird platform because they

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Speaker 4: do in some ways have that similar ethos of you know,

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Speaker 4: your subscribers are subscribing to you, not to substack, and

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Speaker 4: so it's easy to leave to some extent, where you know,

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Speaker 4: I used to be on Substack. I decided to leave.

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Speaker 4: I exported all of my email contacts, you know, I

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Speaker 4: moved all of my content to a different website and

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Speaker 4: it went fairly smoothly. And that's always been a part

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Speaker 4: of substax marketing is you know, this is a very

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Speaker 4: direct relationship. You'll be able to leave if you want.

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Speaker 4: But I'm getting the impression increasingly that they're almost regretting

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Speaker 4: that decision and that they are trying to install ways

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Speaker 4: that lock people into the platform without effectively locking people

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Speaker 4: in by trying to cut off their you know, escape

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Speaker 4: patch essentially. You know, they could say, sorry, you can't

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Speaker 4: export your email lists anymore, or we're going to make

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Speaker 4: it really challenging for you to get, you know, move

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Speaker 4: your content off the platform. And they haven't directly done that,

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Speaker 4: but they are.

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Speaker 2: They've got this following thing now.

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Speaker 4: Well that's that's what I was going to say, is

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Speaker 4: they are sort of trying to add in these new

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Speaker 4: you know, so called features that make it very challenging

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Speaker 4: for people to leave. So there's now followers, which are

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Speaker 4: different from subscribers, and the ideas that you know, if

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Speaker 4: you attract followers, they may eventually convert into a subscriber,

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Speaker 4: and that's very potentially valuable, but you can't take your

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Speaker 4: followers with you. They have this sort of network and

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Speaker 4: this almost like short form social media platform now where

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Speaker 4: you publish these notes and you know, those don't come

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Speaker 4: with you when you leave. They are increased. Yeah, they're

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Speaker 4: increasingly encouraging people to use the substack app, you know,

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Speaker 4: which is the idea then, is that if you leave substack,

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Speaker 4: all of these people who've gotten used to reading on

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Speaker 4: the substack app will no longer find you, and they won't,

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Speaker 4: you know, get access to your writing because you're not

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Speaker 4: there anymore. And so you know, we see this sort

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Speaker 4: of constant gravitational pull of in sertification to use Cory

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Speaker 4: Doctor's word, where you know, platform increasingly are trying to

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Speaker 4: keep people locked in so that they can then extract

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Speaker 4: more value both from the publisher and and from the

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Speaker 4: consumer and while making the experience worse for both.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're kind of seeing and you've mentioned this

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Speaker 3: in your artcle as well. Publishers are moving towards the

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Speaker 3: newsletter format as well.

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Speaker 2: It's like twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 3: Again, I don't know, do you remember in twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 3: when you had like The Atlantic and there was that

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Speaker 3: weird side channel thing, like all these people were like, oh,

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Speaker 3: we're going to build a community. Just gave up on that, right,

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Speaker 3: But it's you're seeing everyone starting newsletters again. It's just

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Speaker 3: you made the point as words at this point, it's

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Speaker 3: just moving stuff into your inbox in a way that

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Speaker 3: people probably don't necessarily want or at least find a

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Speaker 3: little overwhelming.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So that is sort of the downside of this

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Speaker 4: newsletter boom, which is that it's exhausting if you read

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Speaker 4: a lot of newsletters, which I do you know to

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Speaker 4: get you know, if you follow ten newsletter writers who

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Speaker 4: are publishing maybe once a week, twice a week something

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Speaker 4: like that, then constantly throughout your workday or your weekend,

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Speaker 4: you're getting, you know, a notification in you're in box

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Speaker 4: at sort of a random time you need to read

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Speaker 4: this email, which maybe you're in the middle of something

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Speaker 4: and it's not time, you know, not a good time

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Speaker 4: for you to read, and so it's just sort of

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Speaker 4: constantly lurking there or waiting for you to read it.

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Speaker 4: It's you know, potentially edging out other more time critical

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Speaker 4: emails that you need to pay attention to and it's

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Speaker 4: just sort of this you know, daly uge of material.

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Speaker 4: Whereas it used to be that you know, you would

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Speaker 4: go to the websites that you follow, or you know,

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Speaker 4: open the physical newsletter or newspaper that you receive in

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Speaker 4: your mail, and you know, you could sit down and

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Speaker 4: read the news with your morning coffee. And now it's

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Speaker 4: sort of a different you know, it's it's more of

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Speaker 4: a push relationship than a pull relationship. You're not going

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Speaker 4: to read, you are being sort of inundated with the reading.

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Speaker 4: And so RSS is a really nice, uh way in

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Speaker 4: my opinion, to handle that as a reader, because now

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Speaker 4: you know, if I subscribe to your newsletter, I can

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Speaker 4: you know, turn off the email notifications, but put the

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Speaker 4: RSS feed in my feed reader, and then at my

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Speaker 4: leisure when I feel like reading my newsletters or going

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Speaker 4: and catching up on the news or whatever it is

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Speaker 4: that I'm reading, I can go do that and it's

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Speaker 4: all in that one place. And my email in box

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Speaker 4: is you know, safe to have just emails and all

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Speaker 4: of the stuff that's more suited to that.

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Speaker 3: It is funny, we kind of feel like everyone has

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Speaker 3: built these obtuse and complex ways of delivering the news

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Speaker 3: or selling the news, or getting people news in different forms,

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Speaker 3: and for the most part, the thing that keeps working

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Speaker 3: is the thing from what twenty thirty years ago, just

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Speaker 3: like reading words on a page. It's it's funny as well,

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Speaker 3: because looking at this move back to newsletters, like I

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Speaker 3: hate to give me like Petel any credit at all,

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Speaker 3: but Google zero is a real effect. I think, I

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Speaker 3: don't know if it's going to zero, but it's it's

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Speaker 3: I'm still getting a ton for my newsletter. But it

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Speaker 3: is funny to watch people try and get back to newsletters.

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Speaker 3: But it almost feels like they're just treating them as

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Speaker 3: the same thing as a regular article, rather than a

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Speaker 3: unique way of delivering use.

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Speaker 2: Which I guess it is.

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Speaker 3: But I feel like that the email format is not

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Speaker 3: treated with any any necessary particular respect. It's just almost

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Speaker 3: become a dumping ground for these companies. Like it's just like, hey,

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Speaker 3: I think I with Washington Post. Let's see if I

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Speaker 3: still get them, because I got really pissed off. There

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Speaker 3: was a point when I was getting four or five

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Speaker 3: emails a day from the rest Word of God. It's

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Speaker 3: just its abuse on your inbox. In the same way

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Speaker 3: abuses your feed and so one and so forth right.

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Speaker 4: I think that's really true, is that especially high volume

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Speaker 4: publishers really need to grapple with the strategy when it

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Speaker 4: comes to these types of relationships with subscribers, because you know,

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Speaker 4: it's one thing to publish twenty articles a day on

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Speaker 4: you know, Washington Post dot com. That's not you know,

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Speaker 4: that's not a problem for anybody. In fact, people probably

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Speaker 4: enjoy all of that choice. But getting twenty separate emails

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Speaker 4: is not a viable way to have, you know, a

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Speaker 4: respectful relationship with the people who have chosen to subscribe.

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Speaker 4: And so I think that, you know, it is incredibly

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Speaker 4: important to consider that. As you know, if you're a

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Speaker 4: publication that's thinking about creating a newsletter, is like, what

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Speaker 4: do people actually have the appetite to read? And how

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Speaker 4: can we maintain, you know, a respectful relationship with these

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Speaker 4: people who have you know, chosen to receive this material.

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Speaker 3: And my answer is ten thousand words, just some ten

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Speaker 3: thousand words every week or so. No one ever emails

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Speaker 3: me to say my stuff is too long. No one

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Speaker 3: has ever complained about it.

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Speaker 5: It's great.

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Speaker 3: It's kind of depressing on some level though, because the

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Speaker 3: way it's going. I don't know how these large publishers can,

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Speaker 3: like it's like they don't understand any particular format. They're

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Speaker 3: just they're doing newsletters. Don't trying to bag on the

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Speaker 3: verge too much.

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Speaker 2: But I don't know.

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Speaker 3: Suddenly them doing newsletters a lot in the last year

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Speaker 3: doesn't feel like it's specific to It doesn't feel like

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Speaker 3: it's a specific format. It's just like, please give us

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Speaker 3: your emails so that we can continue to email you,

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Speaker 3: which is desperate.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think there is sort of reasonable desperation.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I must be clear, like I totally understand

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Speaker 2: why they.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of publishers have

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Speaker 4: realized that relying on intermediaries, whether it's social media platforms

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Speaker 4: like Twitter to get your news in front of people,

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Speaker 4: or you know, Google search was used to be a

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Speaker 4: massive way that you know, news publications received readership. And

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Speaker 4: now you know, as people are increasingly using the excerpts

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Speaker 4: on Google, they're not clicking through to the page.

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Speaker 3: And you say accepts, you mean the AI summaries. It

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Speaker 3: depends on the summary.

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Speaker 4: Yes, it used to be that Google News would just

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Speaker 4: show like a literal excerpt from uh you know, the

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Speaker 4: top result, and then people would often not visit the

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Speaker 4: underlying website or you know, you see the like Wikipedia

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Speaker 4: knowledge panels that that just sort of summarize what you're

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Speaker 4: looking for. But now, yeah, more recently there's the AI

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Speaker 4: overviews that you know, attempt to do sort of a

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Speaker 4: similar thing, but often drawing from multiple sources. And then

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Speaker 4: you know, if people are satisfied with what they see there,

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Speaker 4: they often don't click through. They don't either see the

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Speaker 4: ads that are funding the website, or they don't, you know,

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Speaker 4: see the invitations to subscribe, They don't you know, view

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Speaker 4: all the other material that might be available to them,

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Speaker 4: and so on, and so the traffic is dwindling at

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Speaker 4: a sort of alarming rate. And so I think a

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Speaker 4: lot of these publishers are trying to get more direct

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Speaker 4: relationships with readers, and email newsletters are a way that

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Speaker 4: they're doing that, which I think is very reasonable. I mean,

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Speaker 4: I think that it is you know, incredibly important as

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Speaker 4: a writer to have a very direct relationship with your readers,

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Speaker 4: because if you are relying on Twitter or Google Search,

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Speaker 4: then the second Twitter or Google Search decides it's more

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Speaker 4: profitable for them to twiddle the knobs in a way

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Speaker 4: that is going to cut off the you know, flow

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Speaker 4: of subscribers to you. They're going to do so, and

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Speaker 4: you're going to be up a creek essentially. But I

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Speaker 4: do think that, you know, there needs to be some

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Speaker 4: thought put into this, especially by high volume publications, so

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Speaker 4: that they are not essentially, you know, directing a fire

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Speaker 4: hose at their readers and essentially turning them off from

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Speaker 4: the publication.

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Speaker 3: I think it's also a challenge for a publication versus

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Speaker 3: a person, because we were talking about this on the

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Speaker 3: last episode, how it's people will gladly pay for a

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Speaker 3: person paying for an outlet that's different. I also think

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Speaker 3: the other problem is, and I'm not just to be clear,

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Speaker 3: I know I bag on the verge. This isn't about

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Speaker 3: them specifically, but it's the problem that I've seen with

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Speaker 3: legacy media at least, is they're terrified of giving a

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Speaker 3: voice to their people. They'll give it to their top columnists,

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Speaker 3: but they think, oh no, if we let people develop

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Speaker 3: a personal relationship with the writer, then they could leave

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Speaker 3: and have some sort of autonomy of their future.

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Speaker 2: It's not why we're in this business. But now it's

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Speaker 2: going back the other way.

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Speaker 3: Where they realized, oh crap, that's the only way in

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Speaker 3: which people will have any kind of sticky relationship with us.

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Speaker 3: After winning the fil for It Again award eleven times

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Speaker 3: in the space of fifteen years, with Google and everyone else,

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Speaker 3: even I am actually like I loved substack at the

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Speaker 3: beginning because it was free, it was really easy to use.

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Speaker 3: It was just a platform. Hamosh would go out and

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Speaker 3: do these things about this is the future of media,

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Speaker 3: and media is good and we love being free here.

439
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:01,680
Speaker 3: But I think that just it was everything. It was

440
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:05,400
Speaker 3: exactly what happens every time. It's oh, right, we need

441
00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 3: to make more money than we spend.

442
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:09,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do we do that? Hmmm.

443
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:14,119
Speaker 3: And it's just it's an inevitable point because it's almost

444
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:18,120
Speaker 3: I have here is my media theory. I think media

445
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:21,720
Speaker 3: outlets are just too big. I think if they need

446
00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 3: to cap out at some point, because all of the

447
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 3: problems we talk about, every single one seems to start

448
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 3: when they get too large for a company or a

449
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:32,400
Speaker 3: media outlet, they get too large to have any personality,

450
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 3: or they get to the point where they're too large

451
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:36,120
Speaker 3: to have an editor who actually still writes and has

452
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:39,160
Speaker 3: a personality themselves. So it's like, ah, we can't give

453
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:43,840
Speaker 3: people too much freedom or anything. It's it's disappointing as well,

454
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 3: because you've kind of proven this exceedingly well with your

455
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 3: many successes, where it's like people will pay for someone

456
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 3: who is themselves, stands for something and gives a shit right,

457
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,080
Speaker 3: and yet they don't want to copy that.

458
00:24:57,480 --> 00:24:59,879
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you're totally right on that where you

459
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 4: newspapers are sort of afraid of letting writers develop their

460
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:06,480
Speaker 4: own personalities. As you say, I mean, you see this

461
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 4: with large newspapers, you know, restricting their writers on social

462
00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 4: media for example, where if they say something to opinionated

463
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 4: on social media, that's you know, against the social media policy.

464
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 4: And you know, I think that is very contrary to

465
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 4: what people are looking for. They want to see people

466
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:27,919
Speaker 4: who have strong opinions and strong beliefs and strong principles

467
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:31,719
Speaker 4: and stand up for those things. And so I do

468
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:34,120
Speaker 4: think that, you know, that's a shortcoming. But I also

469
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 4: agree that newspapers, some some publications seem to be realizing

470
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,399
Speaker 4: that that sort of direct relationship with a writer is

471
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 4: a valuable thing. You know, I mentioned my piece that

472
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:48,439
Speaker 4: Wired was also one of the outlets that has recently

473
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:52,160
Speaker 4: announced a major newsletter push, and their strategy has been,

474
00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 4: you know, here's five or ten options for different newsletters

475
00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:00,680
Speaker 4: that you can read, and they're written by specific people

476
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 4: at Wired who are you know, seen to be experts

477
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:07,720
Speaker 4: in a specific area, so you can follow, you know,

478
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 4: the Kylie Robison Wired newsletter and I was.

479
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 2: Like, mist Robinson's mudile behavior, I'll put a link in that, right.

480
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:16,920
Speaker 4: And I saw that, and I was like, oh, hell yeah,

481
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:19,639
Speaker 4: sign me up because I know that her work is

482
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 4: incredible and I'm going to read it when it shows

483
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 4: up in my newsletter or in my my feed reader.

484
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 4: Whereas you know, I don't read every single article that

485
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 4: Wired publishes because that's just not feasible. Yeah, And so

486
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 4: I think that you know, publications would be wise to

487
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:37,439
Speaker 4: do more of that and to sort of understand that

488
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:42,160
Speaker 4: people do look at bylines, they do have specific authors

489
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:45,640
Speaker 4: who they trust or who's writing they enjoy more, or

490
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:48,920
Speaker 4: whatever it may be, rather than going for the sort

491
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 4: of faceless you know, we're just the Washington Post or

492
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 4: we're just the New York Times and the author doesn't

493
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 4: really matter.

494
00:26:57,040 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 3: It's classic, it's honestly, it's NBA Brain is its core

495
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,640
Speaker 3: pro Brain where it's like, well, how do we how

496
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 3: do do you think that a person like thinks, oh,

497
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 3: I love my relationship with the New York Times, But

498
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 3: that's how they're thinking about it, Like, yeah, what is

499
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,679
Speaker 3: the consumer's relationship with the newspulbl There is no relationship

500
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 3: with the newspaper. There might be a vibe, but there

501
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 3: is not a relationship. I think the Financial Times is

502
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:24,000
Speaker 3: actually found, though not in the newsletter era. They've found

503
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 3: a very good balance between hard news and excellently they've

504
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 3: got Bryce Elder Skags as well as over a Baron's

505
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,439
Speaker 3: now but you've got Alphaville. They found a way to

506
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 3: unleash it, and the ft has done very well. It's

507
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 3: just I don't know, there's some part that feels like

508
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 3: this is the come upance for fifteen twenty years of

509
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 3: hubris of follow, Google follow meta follow whoever will send

510
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 3: us traffic, build build as big as possible on this.

511
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, and also the sort of view from nowhere news approach,

512
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 4: where you know, it's the belief was that there shouldn't

513
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 4: be any sort of opinion, There's wouldn't be any sort

514
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:05,199
Speaker 4: of you know, principled analysis. It should all just be

515
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 4: you know, both sides ism and this supposedly objective reporting,

516
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:14,719
Speaker 4: which does strip out a lot of the personality of

517
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 4: the writer, and it removes a lot of the you know,

518
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:24,679
Speaker 4: reason that people identify with or appreciate specific writers. And

519
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 4: so I think that this was to some extent sort

520
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 4: of a crisis of their own doing. In that sense

521
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 4: as well.

522
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 3: I also think that I also think that the raw

523
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 3: economics of media might be completely fucked on some level.

524
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 3: I think that there's just you see, and I think

525
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 3: it's because of the Google traffic and the social traffic

526
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 3: as well. You've got these massive ad stuffs, you've got

527
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 3: these massive social staffs every and it doesn't seem to

528
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 3: necessarily connect to anything.

529
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 2: It doesn't. I don't know if it like drives results

530
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:57,239
Speaker 2: or not. I truly don't know.

531
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 3: But it's the way that every single media outlet at

532
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:02,960
Speaker 3: some point in the last few years has act like

533
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 3: it's been acted like it's been pecked to death by birds.

534
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 3: Just acted like the verge added their pay well, and

535
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 3: I get it, by the way things cost money, but

536
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 3: it's it almost feels as if these castles have been

537
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 3: built for a land that no longer exists anymore.

538
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think that the news landscape is

539
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 4: incredibly challenging right now for a number of reasons. You know,

540
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 4: there's the traffic issues, there's the AI scraping issues that

541
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 4: are you know, causing a lot of news outlets to

542
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 4: put up paywalls that are then you know, blocking people

543
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 4: who previously like real people, not scrapers, who might previously

544
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 4: have you know, visited their sites and enjoyed their work.

545
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 4: And you know, now you see this double edged sword

546
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 4: whereas people paywall news media, you know, they might block

547
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 4: scrapers to some extent, but they're also blocking people from

548
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 4: reading the material that might then incentive them to subscribe.

549
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 4: You know, if every article is paywall, there is no

550
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 4: way to know if you're going to like what's behind

551
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 4: the paywall, right And so I think that, you know,

552
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,239
Speaker 4: this is sort of an incredibly challenging moment for a

553
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 4: lot of news organizations that are really struggling to figure

554
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 4: out how to deal with it, you know, how to

555
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 4: maintain a sustainable news business when you're facing those types

556
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 4: of threats. You're also facing political threats, increasingly, especially in

557
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 4: the United States, for publishing any sort of controversial material

558
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 4: about the administration or you know, there's you're seeing an

559
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 4: incredible unwillingness by a lot of major publications to have

560
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,840
Speaker 4: strong opinions or to say anything that is you know,

561
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 4: not supported by ten separate sources, you know, any kind

562
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 4: of speculation, that type of thing, because of the legal

563
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 4: environment that we're in. And so, you know, I have

564
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 4: some sympathy I think for a lot of these publications

565
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 4: that are trying to navigate it. But I also think

566
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 4: that the ways in which they have been navigating it

567
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 4: have often been pretty misguided.

568
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 3: So to wrap us up, is there anything giving you

569
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 3: any hope online right now, anything that like genuinely is

570
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 3: like thinking things can be okay, even in a different form.

571
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I would say so, I do think

572
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 4: that there. You know, one thing that has been made

573
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 4: very clear to me is that people still care a

574
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 4: lot about good writing and people who have you know,

575
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:44,240
Speaker 4: new or interesting analysis. You know a lot of people

576
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 4: sort of look at the way that I do my newsletter,

577
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 4: which is, you know, everything is free. There's no paywall.

578
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 4: You don't have to even sign up, much less subscribe,

579
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 4: and I have a pay what you want model, so

580
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 4: you could pay you know, dollar a month, you can

581
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 4: pay ten dollars a month, whatever you want. And people

582
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 4: look at that and they're like, that can't work. You know,

583
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 4: they're like, no one's going.

584
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 2: To do that. And it works great.

585
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, it works great. And you know, people sort of

586
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 4: have this belief that, well, if something's free, no one's

587
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 4: ever going to pay for it, which isn't true. I

588
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:22,400
Speaker 4: think that people will actually strongly value the work that

589
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 4: people are doing even if they're not forced to pay

590
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 4: for it, and they understand that people need support to

591
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 4: be able to continue to do their work, and they

592
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 4: will gladly provide that. And so I do think that

593
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 4: you know, there are models available that will work very

594
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 4: well that we can try, and different people are trying

595
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 4: those models. You know, we're seeing it widely throughout the

596
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 4: media landscape where people are just trying new things, whether

597
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 4: it's you know, the four or four medias and the

598
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 4: defectors and those folks who are doing you know, worker

599
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 4: owned media collectives that are doing incredible work. I mean

600
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:01,680
Speaker 4: four or four is you know, trailblazing. I think in

601
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 4: a lot of ways their reporting is incredible and there

602
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 4: you know, their sort of model is incredible. You know,

603
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:16,960
Speaker 4: we're seeing people very proactively setting up ways in which

604
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:21,640
Speaker 4: they can create sustainable media that does not rely on ads,

605
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 4: that does not require paywalls, that does not you know,

606
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 4: rely on clickbait through social media websites, and so I

607
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 4: am very optimistic in some ways, even though the sort

608
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:36,200
Speaker 4: of landscape is also fairly terrifying.

609
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 3: And on that that note will end it there, Molly,

610
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 3: where can people find you?

611
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: So?

612
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 4: You can find my newsletter at Citation needed dot news.

613
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 4: And then I am also at Mollywhite dot net, which

614
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 4: has links to all my social media and everything else.

615
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 3: And you can find me on this podcast better offline

616
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 3: dot com as well. And yeah, you can catch us

617
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 3: on the monologue this week. Molly, thank you so much

618
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 3: for joining us, and this has been Better Offline.

619
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

620
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 6: The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song

621
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,879
Speaker 6: is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music

622
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:18,560
Speaker 6: and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T

623
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 6: T O S O W s ki dot com. You

624
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 6: can email me at easy at better offline dot com,

625
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 6: or visit better offline dot com to find more podcast

626
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:31,320
Speaker 6: links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend

627
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 6: you go to Chat dot Where's Youreed dot at to

628
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:35,840
Speaker 6: visit the discord, and go to our slash Better.

629
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 2: Offline to check out our reddit. Thank you so much

630
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 2: for listening.

631
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 1: Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For

632
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:46,280
Speaker 1: more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zonemedia

633
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 1: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

634
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever

635
00:34:50,640 --> 00:35:09,400
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