{"id":16718,"date":"2024-11-18T07:00:47","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T08:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=16718"},"modified":"2024-11-18T16:25:51","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T16:25:51","slug":"substacks-bet-on-politics-newsletters-leads-to-subscriber-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=16718","title":{"rendered":"Substack\u2019s Bet on Politics Newsletters Leads to Subscriber Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The newsletter start-up, which once drew an overture from Elon Musk, is betting on politics content and recruiting stars. But profits remain elusive.<\/p>\n

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In April 2023, the newsletter platform Substack received an unexpected proposal from Elon Musk, who had recently purchased Twitter.<\/p>\n

Mr. Musk put it plainly: He wanted to buy Substack. At the time, he was trying to supercharge paid subscriptions on the social network, now called X, which had long fashioned itself as a \u201cglobal town square\u201d for political news and debate. Paid subscriptions are the core of Substack\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

He floated the acquisition on a call with Chris Best, chief executive of Substack, suggesting that Mr. Best could serve as chief executive of the combined company, according to three people familiar with the conversation.<\/p>\n

Mr. Best declined to entertain the proposal, and the short-lived discussion ended, the people said. But in the aftermath, Substack crystallized a new mission: luring politics obsessives away from social networks like X.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tens of thousands of free and paid newsletters are published on Substack each day on topics as varied as salad recipes, Bitcoin strategy and vintage fashion. But in terms of readership and revenue, the platform\u2019s most prized category is politics. Increasingly, Substack has been selling itself as a home for cogent analysis and civilized discussion \u2014 an alternative to the decay of social media discourse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a desperate need for a quality platform with trusted voices, where honest-to-God political discussion, debate, disagreement can happen without it either disappearing into the ether or taking place on a platform where there\u2019s constant knife fights and flame wars,\u201d Hamish McKenzie, a Substack co-founder, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

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The newsletter start-up, which once drew an overture from Elon Musk, is betting on politics content and recruiting stars. But profits remain elusive.In April 2023, the newsletter platform Substack received an unexpected proposal from Elon Musk, who had recently purchased Twitter.Mr. Musk put it plainly: He wanted to buy Substack. At the time, he was trying to supercharge paid subscriptions on the social network, now called X, which had long fashioned itself as a \u201cglobal town square\u201d for political news and debate. Paid subscriptions are the core of Substack\u2019s business.He floated the acquisition on a call with Chris Best, chief executive of Substack, suggesting that Mr. Best could serve as chief executive of the combined company, according to three people familiar with the conversation.Mr. Best declined to entertain the proposal, and the short-lived discussion ended, the people said. But in the aftermath, Substack crystallized a new mission: luring politics obsessives away from social networks like X.Tens of thousands of free and paid newsletters are published on Substack each day on topics as varied as salad recipes, Bitcoin strategy and vintage fashion. But in terms of readership and revenue, the platform\u2019s most prized category is politics. Increasingly, Substack has been selling itself as a home for cogent analysis and civilized discussion \u2014 an alternative to the decay of social media discourse.\u201cThere\u2019s a desperate need for a quality platform with trusted voices, where honest-to-God political discussion, debate, disagreement can happen without it either disappearing into the ether or taking place on a platform where there\u2019s constant knife fights and flame wars,\u201d Hamish McKenzie, a Substack co-founder, said in an interview.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16720,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16718"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16721,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16718\/revisions\/16721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}