WEBVTT - Building A Newspaper Out of the Internet with Molly White 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:03.960 Al Zone Media. 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:09.280 Hell and welcome to Better Offline. 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:23.479 I'm, of course your host ed zetron as ever, and 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:25.800 today I am joined by the incredible critic and author 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:29.040 of the Citation Needed newsletter Molly. Why Molly, thank you 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.360 for joining me, Thanks for having me. So you generally 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:34.199 seem to this is a strange way to put it. 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:37.280 Actually love the internet can be like like you're mad 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:39.080 at what they've done to it, but you actually enjoy 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:40.400 the computer quite a lot. 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:42.920 Yes, big fan of the computer over here. 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.560 You wrote this fantastic thing about RSS, and I think 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:50.440 like a lot of people kind of have the idea 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:52.920 it's a feed. Can you walk people through exactly what 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:55.560 our SS is and why you like it so much? 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.960 Yeah? So, RSS is just a protocol. It's sort of 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:05.280 a system by which websites can make their content available 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:10.320 to be ingested by programs called feed readers, which are 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.640 websites or applications or you know, can be an app 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:18.800 on your phone where you can pull together feeds from 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.480 any number of sources, whether it's the newsletters you follow, 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:28.200 the news organizations that you subscribe to, podcasts, YouTube videos, 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.640 massed on feeds, any sort of feed like structure can 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:36.039 be pulled into these feed readers, and then you can 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:38.880 read them anytime you want, on your own time, without 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.240 you know, going to the substack app, opening your massed 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:46.800 on account, you know, going to wired dot com. And 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:50.520 it's a really wonderful way to interact with the web 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:56.440 these days, because it's sort of radically different from how 0:01:56.680 --> 0:02:01.680 a lot of uh are online or actions have become 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:08.799 this sort of abusive you know, wrestling match with whatever 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.920 it is that you're trying to read. You know, the 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:16.840 content appears there. There's usually no ads in your RSS feed. 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:19.919 There's not any goodhead. 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:21.720 And is it like you could you said, you can 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.360 put Mastodon posts and Bluesky into it, like you can 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:25.720 have your social feeds in that too. 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:26.200 Yeah. 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:27.000 Yeah. 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:32.840 A ton of different services provide RSS feeds, sometimes without 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.520 people even realizing it, so pretty much any WordPress site 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.080 will publish an RSS feed. Every ghost blog has an 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:44.040 RSS feed by default. Substack has RSS on by default. 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.480 There are other you know, content management systems where it's 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.280 either on by default or easily enabled with a click 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:57.880 or so. And the real benefit to the person using 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:00.520 an RSS reader is that you don't don't have to 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.040 rely on the sort of algorithmic feeds that we have 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.240 become accustomed to, where you know, if you go to 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:11.480 Twitter and you just want to see, you know, news 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.480 articles written by the journalists that you chose to follow, there, 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:17.040 chances are you're not going to see that. You're going 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.560 to see Twitter ads, You're going to see rage bait 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:22.080 that's being boosted. 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.720 By the algorithm four or five. That kind of yeah, like. 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.240 Elon Musk's posts always show up even though you don't 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:32.240 follow him, right, and then the journalists that you did 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.120 go out of your way to follow, the chances are 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.080 you're not going to see the news articles they wrote 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.800 because Twitter do downranks links, and so. 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:41.960 That's the same thing with threats as well, I think. 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.760 But yeah, I mean it's extent Facebook. I mean, a 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.080 lot of social media websites have started down ranking links 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:50.840 to try to convince people to stay on the platforms 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:53.960 rather than going to wherever people actually publish their work. 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:58.760 And it's this horrendous situation for both publishers and readers. 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.280 And so you could sort of opt out of it 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:05.040 by using RSS to follow these things very directly and 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.880 avoid a lot of the surveillance and a lot of 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:12.960 the you know, sort of abusive practices that we're increasingly 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:14.920 seeing on platforms. 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.240 And do they still get the traffic? 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:19.280 So that was that's the one thing with ours that 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:21.839 they've really been able to get my hangof, because I know, 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.480 I don't get subscribers like I won't get like reads, 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:29.120 which is fine, but does this does this not like 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.480 slightly disadvantaged publishers and suppurse they haven't turned it off? 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.520 Well, it depends a lot on how a publisher makes 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:41.680 their money. So for example, I write a newsletter. People 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.360 can pay to subscribe to my newsletter, and it's really 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:47.280 no different to me if they read it in their 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.880 email inbox, if they come to my website, or if 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.599 they you know, read it in their RSS reader. You know, 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.720 it's sort of all the same. And then people who 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:03.800 publish Paywalt's content can an opt to have either excerpts 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:08.240 of their posts published on their RSS feeds or increasingly 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:12.640 we're starting to see people create subscriber RSS feeds so 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:17.120 that if you do yep, and you know, I subscribe 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:18.840 to four or four media and so I have a 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.760 specific RSS feed that I can follow there that gives 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.600 me the full text articles and so you know that's 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:30.040 a way in which publishers can still earn money through 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:36.039 subscriptions while offering RSS feeds. The place where it can 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:41.920 be challenging is ads supported, you know, publishers where they 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.800 really rely on you visiting the website to get the 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:50.000 AD traffic. And so you'll often see ads supported publishers 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:54.520 publishing excerpts from their RSS feeds, but not full text, 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.360 meaning that if you're following them in a feed reader, 0:05:57.400 --> 0:05:58.960 you still have to open the page and it takes 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:00.680 you to the website and they get the traffic. And 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:04.040 so that's how a lot of those sites get around it. 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:08.159 But there are websites that basically decide that it's you know, 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.400 sort of a lost leader. It's like the Costco retissory chicken. 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:14.480 It gets people in the door, even if they lose 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:18.359 some AD revenue. You know, you're still seeing their material 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.520 more that you might not otherwise, you're still visiting the site, 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:24.760 you might sign up for a subscription, whatever it might be, 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:27.840 And so they sort of decided it's a worthwhile trade off. 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:32.520 And you use innerader, right I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.040 you mentioned this is a really specific one. But I 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.000 saw on your piece you were saying you no longer 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.919 recommend Feedley. And I've heard Feedley mentioned a few times. 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:41.080 Why is that. 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:43.960 Yeah, So I used to use Feedley, and I used 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:46.800 to recommend them pretty widely. You know, they were doing 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:51.280 they had a very nice, full featured RSS reader, and 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.120 then they sort of started to pivot in ways that 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:56.360 were a little bit uncomfortable, where it was very clear 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:00.839 that they were targeting you know, cybersecurity recres a lot 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:05.599 of the time and very like corporate uh you know people. Yeah, 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.760 it was a very odd like subset of traffic where 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.960 they were constantly trying to help me, like follow threats 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:16.640 online and stuff like that. Yes, they and then so 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:18.320 but that was fine, you know, I was like, Okay, 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:19.680 I'm not the demographic for this. 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:21.360 Yeah, they've just changed their business. 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:25.840 Yeah, except that once they after they did that for 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:30.520 a little bit, I started to get promotions about tracking 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:34.440 strikes and it was all about monitoring where there might 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:35.680 be strikes happening. 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:36.880 Oh and it. 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:43.840 There they they say that they sort of yeah, exactly. 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.000 They tried to sort of after I, you know, wrote 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:48.440 to them a little bit about this, they tried to 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:50.920 sort of play it off as like bad messaging and 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.400 that they were really just trying to help people protect. 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.200 Their help people strike. 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.880 Yeah, it definitely came off as sort of strike breaking 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.320 as a service, and I decided I was done with 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.120 feed ley finally. Yeah, right, what we've all been waiting for. 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:07.880 But I mean, the one thing I really love about 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.080 RSS is that you know, it's a protocol, it's not 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:15.000 a service that you're locked into, and so it's actually 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.640 very easy to switch RSS readers if one of them 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.600 decides that it's going to start surveilling strikes. 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:23.160 That's a good question. 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.040 How does how do you so if you sit and 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.000 I really I'll be linking to this piece conspicuously or 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:33.040 excellent rss pace, but how do you move? Was actually 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:34.000 one of my questions. 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:38.000 It's incredibly easy. Pretty much every RSS reader allows you 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:40.680 to export all of the RSS feeds that you follow, 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.480 and it's just a simple XML file. It's the same 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:46.319 thing that I used to publish my blog role in 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.880 my website. So if you're curious, like what blogs I read, 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:55.800 I just export those, you know, folders into a PML 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:57.520 file is with what it's called, and then I put 0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:58.320 in on my website. 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.680 But the same just just open that file in Yeah, 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:03.080 what inner reader or what have you? 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:03.439 Right? 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.800 And it took me probably ten seconds to switch from 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.520 Feebley to my new very readers. Yeah. 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.920 Wow, there is there's some stuff in the Internet that 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:12.680 works still. 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:14.120 It's magic. 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:27.120 And having you want here to talk about RSS was 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:29.679 important because first of all, people say I complain all 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:33.120 the time, and they are right, and it's just it's 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.480 nice to see that there are still some functional parts 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:37.920 of the Internet. Is there other other parts that you 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.199 actually like, other feet things like I don't know, RSS 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:44.600 that you use regularly that could make make the world's 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:47.880 make our listeners internet world's a little bit better. 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:50.480 Yeah, I mean, I think it's all part of a 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:54.640 theme of sort of avoiding these intermediaries that have these 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:59.200 incredibly extractive relationships with both the users and you know 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.440 and off publishers who are on, you know, the other 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.360 side of that relationship. And so I do everything I 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:10.760 can to sort of avoid those intermediaries where possible, and so, 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.360 you know, for example, I write a newsletter. I use 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:18.440 the Ghost newsletter software, where you know, the relationship that 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.480 I have with the people who subscribe to me is 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:26.079 very direct. You know, people are subscribing to Molly White, 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:30.120 the writer, They're not subscribing to ghost the website that 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:32.840 then you know, danes to give me a cut of 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.400 whatever they're taking in, which is unlike some of the 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:42.400 other services out there, for example Patreon, where you know, 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:46.520 if you set up a Patreon account, everyone is actually 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:50.760 in a financial relationship with Patreon, not with you, and 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:52.960 so if you decide to leave, it can be incredibly 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:57.480 challenging to move people to another service, whereas with Ghosts, 0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:59.760 if I want to leave, I can just set up 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.880 somewhere else, I can export my subscribers. The financial relationships 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.920 are already just directly with me, and so that's a 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:12.080 very powerful thing, the sort of escape hatch, where now 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.719 if Ghosts decides, you know, hey, maybe we're gonna i 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.040 don't know, slap ads on everyone's newsletter without them agreeing 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.400 to it, they now have this incentive on the other end, 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.640 which is like, well, Molly and all the other people 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:29.400 who publish with ghost might not like that, and they 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:33.480 might just leave because they can, whereas other services that 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:37.480 have more of a locked in relationship can make those 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.000 decisions and take the gamble that well, it's so hard 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:44.360 to leave that people are probably just going to put 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.880 up with it, and so that's that's one place where 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.360 I do that. You know, there are sort of other 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.880 services throughout the web that you know, are sort of 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.520 similar where I try to keep the intermediaries to a 0:11:58.559 --> 0:11:59.640 bare minimum. 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:00.440 Yeah. 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:04.200 I used Ghost myself when I used outposts from They're 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:04.600 very good. 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:06.120 It's basically it's. 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:07.800 One of the things I actually like about Ghost is 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:09.520 that you can build a company on top of it, 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:11.840 and the company is just, hey, we'll provide some of 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:14.199 those slick little features that you get from a substack 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:16.679 or what have you, like following up with people if 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.120 their credit cards expired or what have you. But it's 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:21.280 and it's also for giant babies like me who can't 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:22.800 do code. 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:24.560 I didn't vibe coded, I swear. 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.840 But thinking of Substack, I've never seen a company go 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.120 quite as weirdly as them, putting aside on them obvious 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:36.240 promotions of nazis. It feels as if substack has just 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:38.560 turned into another dogshit social network. 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:44.240 Yeah. I mean substack is a weird platform because they 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:48.080 do in some ways have that similar ethos of you know, 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.800 your subscribers are subscribing to you, not to substack, and 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:56.600 so it's easy to leave to some extent, where you know, 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.920 I used to be on Substack. I decided to leave. 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.959 I exported all of my email contacts, you know, I 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:06.920 moved all of my content to a different website and 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:10.760 it went fairly smoothly. And that's always been a part 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.760 of substax marketing is you know, this is a very 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.400 direct relationship. You'll be able to leave if you want. 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:21.040 But I'm getting the impression increasingly that they're almost regretting 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:26.160 that decision and that they are trying to install ways 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:30.560 that lock people into the platform without effectively locking people 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:35.199 in by trying to cut off their you know, escape 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:38.559 patch essentially. You know, they could say, sorry, you can't 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.120 export your email lists anymore, or we're going to make 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.079 it really challenging for you to get, you know, move 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.360 your content off the platform. And they haven't directly done that, 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:48.160 but they are. 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:50.920 They've got this following thing now. 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:52.680 Well that's that's what I was going to say, is 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.720 they are sort of trying to add in these new 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.240 you know, so called features that make it very challenging 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.559 for people to leave. So there's now followers, which are 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:05.920 different from subscribers, and the ideas that you know, if 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.439 you attract followers, they may eventually convert into a subscriber, 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.560 and that's very potentially valuable, but you can't take your 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:17.520 followers with you. They have this sort of network and 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.800 this almost like short form social media platform now where 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.480 you publish these notes and you know, those don't come 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:31.000 with you when you leave. They are increased. Yeah, they're 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:34.320 increasingly encouraging people to use the substack app, you know, 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:38.000 which is the idea then, is that if you leave substack, 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:39.880 all of these people who've gotten used to reading on 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.760 the substack app will no longer find you, and they won't, 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:46.640 you know, get access to your writing because you're not 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.480 there anymore. And so you know, we see this sort 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:55.640 of constant gravitational pull of in sertification to use Cory 0:14:55.720 --> 0:15:01.640 Doctor's word, where you know, platform increasingly are trying to 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.080 keep people locked in so that they can then extract 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.280 more value both from the publisher and and from the 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:12.840 consumer and while making the experience worse for both. 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:15.880 Yeah, and you're kind of seeing and you've mentioned this 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.080 in your artcle as well. Publishers are moving towards the 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:19.280 newsletter format as well. 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:20.600 It's like twenty twenty one. 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.120 Again, I don't know, do you remember in twenty twenty one, 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.440 when you had like The Atlantic and there was that 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:28.040 weird side channel thing, like all these people were like, oh, 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.960 we're going to build a community. Just gave up on that, right, 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:34.200 But it's you're seeing everyone starting newsletters again. It's just 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.040 you made the point as words at this point, it's 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:39.840 just moving stuff into your inbox in a way that 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:43.000 people probably don't necessarily want or at least find a 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:43.840 little overwhelming. 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.480 Yeah, So that is sort of the downside of this 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.520 newsletter boom, which is that it's exhausting if you read 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:52.960 a lot of newsletters, which I do you know to 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.840 get you know, if you follow ten newsletter writers who 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.680 are publishing maybe once a week, twice a week something 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:03.920 like that, then constantly throughout your workday or your weekend, 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.680 you're getting, you know, a notification in you're in box 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:08.840 at sort of a random time you need to read 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:11.800 this email, which maybe you're in the middle of something 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:13.760 and it's not time, you know, not a good time 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:15.480 for you to read, and so it's just sort of 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.200 constantly lurking there or waiting for you to read it. 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:22.840 It's you know, potentially edging out other more time critical 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.520 emails that you need to pay attention to and it's 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:28.280 just sort of this you know, daly uge of material. 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:30.640 Whereas it used to be that you know, you would 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:34.480 go to the websites that you follow, or you know, 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.960 open the physical newsletter or newspaper that you receive in 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.080 your mail, and you know, you could sit down and 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.320 read the news with your morning coffee. And now it's 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:45.280 sort of a different you know, it's it's more of 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.400 a push relationship than a pull relationship. You're not going 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.840 to read, you are being sort of inundated with the reading. 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:56.320 And so RSS is a really nice, uh way in 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:01.240 my opinion, to handle that as a reader, because now 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.960 you know, if I subscribe to your newsletter, I can 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:09.000 you know, turn off the email notifications, but put the 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:12.600 RSS feed in my feed reader, and then at my 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.800 leisure when I feel like reading my newsletters or going 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:17.919 and catching up on the news or whatever it is 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.160 that I'm reading, I can go do that and it's 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:22.520 all in that one place. And my email in box 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.680 is you know, safe to have just emails and all 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:28.760 of the stuff that's more suited to that. 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.600 It is funny, we kind of feel like everyone has 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:36.080 built these obtuse and complex ways of delivering the news 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.760 or selling the news, or getting people news in different forms, 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.080 and for the most part, the thing that keeps working 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.879 is the thing from what twenty thirty years ago, just 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:48.240 like reading words on a page. It's it's funny as well, 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.560 because looking at this move back to newsletters, like I 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:54.600 hate to give me like Petel any credit at all, 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:56.879 but Google zero is a real effect. I think, I 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.000 don't know if it's going to zero, but it's it's 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.320 I'm still getting a ton for my newsletter. But it 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.160 is funny to watch people try and get back to newsletters. 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.000 But it almost feels like they're just treating them as 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.719 the same thing as a regular article, rather than a 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:14.040 unique way of delivering use. 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:14.840 Which I guess it is. 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.560 But I feel like that the email format is not 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:22.000 treated with any any necessary particular respect. It's just almost 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:24.400 become a dumping ground for these companies. Like it's just like, hey, 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.040 I think I with Washington Post. Let's see if I 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:28.920 still get them, because I got really pissed off. There 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:30.640 was a point when I was getting four or five 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.359 emails a day from the rest Word of God. It's 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:35.600 just its abuse on your inbox. In the same way 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.280 abuses your feed and so one and so forth right. 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.240 I think that's really true, is that especially high volume 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.800 publishers really need to grapple with the strategy when it 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:49.119 comes to these types of relationships with subscribers, because you know, 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:52.400 it's one thing to publish twenty articles a day on 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.439 you know, Washington Post dot com. That's not you know, 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.000 that's not a problem for anybody. In fact, people probably 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.840 enjoy all of that choice. But getting twenty separate emails 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.119 is not a viable way to have, you know, a 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:10.760 respectful relationship with the people who have chosen to subscribe. 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:13.359 And so I think that, you know, it is incredibly 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:16.359 important to consider that. As you know, if you're a 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:20.160 publication that's thinking about creating a newsletter, is like, what 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:24.240 do people actually have the appetite to read? And how 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:28.040 can we maintain, you know, a respectful relationship with these 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.880 people who have you know, chosen to receive this material. 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:35.640 And my answer is ten thousand words, just some ten 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:38.960 thousand words every week or so. No one ever emails 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:41.000 me to say my stuff is too long. No one 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:42.119 has ever complained about it. 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:53.480 It's great. 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:00.800 It's kind of depressing on some level though, because the 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.800 way it's going. I don't know how these large publishers can, 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.240 like it's like they don't understand any particular format. They're 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:09.840 just they're doing newsletters. Don't trying to bag on the 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:10.480 verge too much. 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:11.879 But I don't know. 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:14.760 Suddenly them doing newsletters a lot in the last year 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.879 doesn't feel like it's specific to It doesn't feel like 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:20.359 it's a specific format. It's just like, please give us 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:22.960 your emails so that we can continue to email you, 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:25.040 which is desperate. 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:29.240 Yeah, I mean, I think there is sort of reasonable desperation. 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:31.919 Oh yeah, I must be clear, like I totally understand 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:32.280 why they. 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:35.720 Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of publishers have 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:40.560 realized that relying on intermediaries, whether it's social media platforms 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:43.879 like Twitter to get your news in front of people, 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.679 or you know, Google search was used to be a 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.760 massive way that you know, news publications received readership. And 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:56.280 now you know, as people are increasingly using the excerpts 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:58.800 on Google, they're not clicking through to the page. 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.480 And you say accepts, you mean the AI summaries. It 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:03.600 depends on the summary. 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:07.520 Yes, it used to be that Google News would just 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.679 show like a literal excerpt from uh you know, the 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:15.600 top result, and then people would often not visit the 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:18.760 underlying website or you know, you see the like Wikipedia 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.160 knowledge panels that that just sort of summarize what you're 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:26.159 looking for. But now, yeah, more recently there's the AI 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:28.960 overviews that you know, attempt to do sort of a 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:33.200 similar thing, but often drawing from multiple sources. And then 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:35.640 you know, if people are satisfied with what they see there, 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:38.680 they often don't click through. They don't either see the 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:42.679 ads that are funding the website, or they don't, you know, 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:46.840 see the invitations to subscribe, They don't you know, view 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.120 all the other material that might be available to them, 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:52.119 and so on, and so the traffic is dwindling at 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.080 a sort of alarming rate. And so I think a 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.720 lot of these publishers are trying to get more direct 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:03.119