The transition of Paul Krugman from the New York Times to an independent newsletter highlights a significant shift in modern media. Traditional media models are struggling to compete in an age of digital distraction. Mobile devices offer free information and algorithmically curated content that is often more engaging than expert analysis. This trend suggests a future where deep expertise might be replaced by entertainment and pithy takes.

In an age of digital distraction, the business model for traditional media is really struggling to compete. On your phone, information is free and distraction is powerful. If you want to know about the news, your phone can deliver dozens of algorithmically curated takes. It is just more interesting and more accessible than a lot of traditional media.

However, the success of independent paid newsletters offers a more optimistic outlook. Some experts are attracting subscriber bases that rival major newspapers and earning significant income in the seven figure range. This suggests that a distributed network of respected thinkers can still impact the conversation. Paid email subscriptions may provide the foundation for a new type of professional journalism that competes with the low quality content found on social media apps.

Is it possible that paid email newsletter subscriptions might be the foundation on which we can build a new type of professional journalism? Can a distributed network of expert thinkers offer competition to the nonsense and slop being delivered through attention economy apps?

Paul Krugman has built a massive presence on Substack with over 500,000 subscribers and a top ranking in US politics. His strategy involves a high volume of content, often posting every single day. These posts range from brief, two-paragraph observations on current events to detailed articles featuring tables, data links, and even musical recommendations at the end.

At the moment he is posting every day and only one post a week is subscriber only. You get a lot of content even if you are not a subscriber. But for seven dollars a month, you will get all of the posts and you could participate in the comments.

The subscription model is set at seven dollars a month. Interestingly, the majority of the content remains accessible to everyone. Krugman typically makes only one post per week exclusive to paying subscribers, using the rest of his daily output to build reach and engagement with a wider audience. This approach provides value to a large free audience while still offering clear benefits for those who choose to pay for the full archive and community access.

To understand the income potential of a newsletter, we can look at the conversion rates provided by the platform itself. Substack suggests that a typical newsletter with both free and paid tiers will see between 5 and 10 percent of its audience become paying subscribers. In more conservative cases, this number might drop to 3 percent.

Substack says for a standard newsletter with a free tier and a paid tier, you can expect somewhere between 5 to 10 percent of your subscribers to pay for the paid tier. The low end of that would be more like 3 percent.

By applying these benchmarks to a specific writer like Krugman, we can model different scenarios for monthly and annual revenue. This approach involves calculating the number of paid subscribers for each conversion percentage and determining the resulting income. While these figures represent gross earnings, it is also important to remember that the platform takes a 10 percent cut of the final total.

Paul Krugman has a massive audience of 500,000 subscribers on Substack. If we look at the financials, even a modest conversion rate results in significant income. For example, if 10% of those subscribers pay for the premium tier, he earns $350,000 every month. That adds up to over $4 million a year. Even at a lower conversion rate of 5%, he still brings in over $2 million annually. Even in a pessimistic scenario where only 3% of readers pay, he is still earning about $1.26 million in average revenue.

In every reasonable scenario, his seven day a week Substack has him doing much better financially than he could have been doing at the New York Times. And if he's in the best case scenario, he is actually building up real wealth.

These numbers show that moving to an independent platform can be far more lucrative than traditional journalism. Krugman is likely earning much more now than he ever did at his previous role with the New York Times.

Running a top-tier newsletter is a demanding job that requires significant time and effort. Nate Silver, a prominent writer on Substack, suggests that the process is creatively fulfilling but very hard work. To maintain a large subscriber base and convert readers to paid plans, a writer needs to produce a high volume of content. This usually means writing at least three articles every week.

I have to tell you that producing my newsletter is really hard work. It is often creatively fulfilling and enjoyable. But it is a lot of work. You have to be writing a lot if you want to have a large subscriber base and a good conversion to paid.

The workload for a successful publication typically matches a standard full-time job. Silver estimates that he spends 40 to 50 hours each week on his writing. Although he enjoys a flexible schedule with time for travel and leisure, the total hours remain high. This level of commitment is a baseline for anyone who wants to reach the top rankings on platform leaderboards. For professional writers, this schedule represents a serious and consistent obligation rather than a side hobby.

Succeeding on Substack requires more than just good ideas. It involves stretching singles into doubles by refining headlines, leads, and images to turn a basic concept into a great one. The most successful posts, often called home runs, come from content that is both timely and differentiated. It is not enough to simply summarize what is happening in the world. To stand out, a writer must offer a unique angle on current events.

If all you're doing is summarizing what's going on, then who cares? But if it's timely but unique, that's where the real numbers pop up.

A notable example of this strategy is a post about a surprising political poll that turned out to be incorrect. Instead of just reporting the numbers, the author framed it around the idea that the shocking result meant someone was going to be significantly wrong. This unique framing made it one of the most popular posts in that newsletter's history. Beyond framing, efficiency is vital. Developing the skill to write high quality content quickly can save hours of labor.

Maintaining a top tier newsletter is comparable to a full time journalism job. While the workload is significant, it offers a level of flexibility and autonomy that traditional newsrooms do not provide. Writers can manage their own schedules and pursue other interests because they are their own bosses. A nose to tail approach to content also helps maximize effort. If a specific section does not fit in one article, it can be repurposed for a future Q and A or a roundup post to ensure no writing goes to waste.

There is a significant question about how many people are actually earning a good living on Substack beyond the most famous names. While figures like Paul Krugman and Nate Silver are clearly successful, the platform does not openly share data for the broader creator base. This lack of transparency is intentional and mirrors the strategy used by social media companies.

Substack doesn't like to break this out because it is like with influencers on Instagram. They want everyone to think that you never know, you could be rich tomorrow or you are only one viral video away.

By keeping success rates hidden, the platform maintains an aspirational atmosphere. This keeps creators motivated by the idea that they might be the next person to achieve massive success, even if those results are rare for the average user.

Data from the top categories on Substack shows that very few writers reach a million-dollar income level. By looking at newsletters with 500,000 or more subscribers, research identifies only about 34 newsletters across the entire platform operating at this elite level. Politics is by far the most successful category, claiming 15 of these top-tier newsletters, while business and technology follow with four each.

How many Substack millionaires are there? It's like 34. It might be more because if you're a little bit below that and you have a good conversion. But the number of newsletters that are in Paul Krugman's category, that's pretty small.

While the top earners are rare, a more practical question is how many people earn a reasonable living. To estimate this, one can look at the 20th spot on the leaderboards for major categories like politics, culture, and finance. This provides a baseline for what a successful but not world-leading newsletter earns. Since everyone above the 20th spot makes more, it gives a clearer picture of the financial distribution across the platform.

Politics stands as the most popular category on Substack. Looking at the top twenty newsletters, Andrew Sullivan ranks at number twenty with approximately 200,000 subscribers. Using a standard subscription fee of $7 per month and a conservative conversion rate of 5 percent, a newsletter like this generates roughly $840,000 annually.

I heard him multiple years ago talk about his shift over to Substack. He was saying something like, 'At the time, I am making $600,000 a year or more. This is great. Why would I ever go back to magazine journalism?'

The actual revenue for top creators likely exceeds these estimates. Many have higher conversion rates or higher fees. This can push annual earnings well over a million dollars. This financial reality explains the strong appeal of the platform compared to traditional media roles.

The revenue potential on Substack varies significantly depending on the category. In the Culture category, the 20th largest newsletter boasts around 130,000 subscribers, which can translate to roughly $550,000 in annual revenue. Technology follows a similar path, where the 20th position maintains 95,000 subscribers and generates about $400,000. While categories like business and finance show lower subscriber counts at the same ranking, these numbers are deceptive. These creators often prioritize high-end subscriber bases over massive scale.

You don't need 500,000 subscribers. What you need is 1,000 people that are going to pay $500 a year because it is really valuable information for them. So almost certainly those number 20 ranked newsletters in business and finance are making a lot more than that.

When applying a baseline of $150,000 a year as the threshold for a successful career, many top newsletters across politics, culture, and technology easily clear this bar. Even in niches where the subscriber count appears lower, the higher price points for specialized insights likely bridge the gap. Conservatively, at least 500 writers are likely earning over $150,000 in gross revenue from their publications today. This data suggests a significant shift in how writers can monetize their work outside of traditional media.

The newspaper industry has seen a dramatic decline from its peak. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, US daily newspapers reached a circulation of about 60 million. This represented a golden era for print media. However, that number fell off a cliff in the following decades. By 2022, estimated circulation dropped to roughly 20 million subscribers. This shift marks a massive change in how people consume their daily news.

At its peak you had 60 million daily newspapers. That was the circulation like printed and it is down to 20 million. So we can think of it like there were 60 million subscribers to newspapers at its peak and now we are down to about 20 million.

The financial impact of this decline is even more startling. The industry reached its highest revenue around 2005 and 2006, bringing in approximately 50 billion dollars. Most of this money came from advertising rather than subscriptions. Since then, revenue has plummeted to somewhere between 9 billion and 11 billion dollars. This collapse in funding directly affects how many journalists can stay employed. While 56,000 reporters and editors worked in the industry in 1990, today that number is likely closer to 25,000.

Comparing newsletters to traditional newspapers reveals a massive gap in scale. Substack currently has about 5 million paid subscribers. This serves as the closest equivalent to newspaper circulation. Revenue for the newsletter sector sits around 450 million dollars. In contrast, newspapers still command about 11 billion dollars in revenue and maintain a circulation of 20 million readers.

The newsletter economy is much smaller than the newspaper economy. Most notably, there are about 500 professional full time writers compared to something more like 25,000 right now in newspapers.

The number of people making a living also shows a stark difference. There are roughly 500 to 1000 writers earning a full time living on Substack. Traditional newspapers still employ about 25,000 journalists and editors. While the newsletter space is growing, it has not yet reached the same professional density or financial footprint as the legacy newspaper industry.

Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie envisions a future where the platform reaches 50 million paid subscribers. This would be a tenfold increase from the current 5 million users. If this growth occurs, Substack would have a circulation comparable to the peak of the newspaper industry. However, the financial landscape remains different. Even with this expansion, projected revenue would reach around 4.5 billion dollars. This is significantly lower than the 50 billion dollars newspapers generated at their height.

I don't see anything in the laws of physics that should prevent Substack from getting to more than 50 million paid subscribers.

The employment structure also looks different in this digital model. A 50 million subscriber future might support 5,000 people making a full-time living. This is much smaller than the 56,000 people once employed by newspapers at their peak. Despite these gaps, the platform is beginning to look comparable to the current state of the newspaper industry as it continues to decline. There is a sense that newsletters could eventually replace the role newspapers once held.

There are ways to increase revenue beyond subscription fees. Newsletter creators can monetize free subscribers through display ads. For example, a newsletter with 100,000 subscribers and a 50 percent open rate can generate significant income. Using a standard 35 dollar CPM, each newsletter sent could earn 1,750 dollars. Publishing three times a week would result in a quarter million dollars a year. Other income sources include live events, speaking engagements, and higher-tier memberships. These additions make the business model more robust than subscriptions alone.

Traditional newspapers offer specific advantages that modern newsletters often lack. They maintain rigorous infrastructure for fact-checking and copy editing. Because newspapers face significant liability exposure, they are usually careful about what they print. For example, the Washington Post faced a massive lawsuit after printing a story about a confrontation between students and a Native American man based on social media trends. This level of legal risk forces a standard of verification that individual newsletters might ignore.

Newspapers have fact checking, copy editing and content editing. They also have large liability exposure. So they are very careful about traditionally what they print.

Large news organizations also have the resources to keep reporters on the ground globally. A major newspaper can station someone in Central America to report directly on events in Venezuela. When journalism was primarily funded by advertising, newspapers had to appeal to the widest possible audience. This created a more consistent view of reality because editors avoided alienating potential readers. Today, the paywall model encourages creators to thrill specific subscribers. This often leads to more biased reporting. Finally, the fixed format of a physical paper exposes readers to diverse topics they might not have searched for on their own.

The traditional news media model is struggling with a decline in public trust. While newspapers often claim to be neutral observers, they frequently cater to the partisan leanings of their paid subscribers. This gap between the claim of objectivity and the reality of bias creates frustration for readers on both sides of the political spectrum.

Individual writers often provide a more reliable experience because their biases are transparent. Humans are naturally good at assessing individual perspectives. When you follow a specific writer, you understand their background and point of view. This clarity allows you to filter their insights and adjust for their known leanings.

When you're dealing with individuals with a known profile, we as humans actually can deal much better with that than large centralized news sources that are just claiming this is just like a neutral observation of reality.

The newsletter economy functions as a competitive marketplace that rewards talent. Unlike traditional newsrooms where reporters might advance through a corporate hierarchy, newsletter writers must earn every subscriber. This environment produces higher quality writing because only the most effective communicators survive the competition. These writers also face less pressure from corporate advertisers compared to large media organizations.

The vision for a new media ecosystem faces a significant threat if platforms like Substack prioritize growth over journalism. Critics argue that Substack is becoming a walled garden where writers serve the platform instead of owning their work. People often say things like "my Substack" in a way they would never say "my WordPress" or "my Amazon." This terminology suggests that the brand of the platform is overshadowing the voice of the writer.

There is no such thing as my Substack. There is only your writing and a forever fight against a world of pure insidification.

The real danger is that Substack might focus on becoming a multi-billion dollar company. To reach that valuation, they need millions of users glued to the app. This could lead them to turn the platform into a stream of distraction similar to TikTok or Twitter. Instead of supporting thousands of journalists making a good living, they might use AI to remix content into a feed designed for constant engagement.

Our problem is trying to become a hundred billion dollar valued company. The way we get there is we have to have our 50 million users using this thing constantly. We need to take and mix and remix content and everyone is just providing us text.

Going independent is not a simple solution for most writers. Running a standalone newsletter is expensive and technically difficult. It can cost over a thousand dollars a month just for hosting and email delivery fees. Most creators do not have the resources to manage these logistics on their own. The best hope for the future is the development of open source projects or low friction alternatives. These tools would allow writers to keep their independence without the pressure to become a massive unicorn company.

The landscape of journalism is shifting toward paid newsletters. Figures like Paul Krugman demonstrate the potential for massive success in this space. Krugman has a long history as a columnist and a Nobel Prize winner. His success is built on decades of being a prominent voice. This model allows writers to profit directly from their words and ideas. While it requires consistent effort, it can be managed like a standard 40 hour work week.

I think of my newsletter as dispatches from the front lines of this battle of depth against distraction. I want to be sending useful dispatches to people who care about that tension.

A successful newsletter often focuses on a specific tension. One approach is treating a newsletter as a series of dispatches. This involves explaining new technologies and highlighting people who find depth in inspiring ways. The goal is to provide useful information to those navigating the complexities of the digital economy.

Removing social media from your phone can be a painful experience at first. During a trip to Australia, a group decided to delete all social media apps except for one person who handled essential updates. While the initial separation was brutal, the return to these platforms proved to be even more difficult. Re-entering the digital world creates a unique kind of friction that is often more challenging than the original detox.

My producer and close friend, Rob Moore, instructed all of us to get rid of social media on our phones. It was pretty brutal at first. And then coming back to social media has actually turned out to be more challenging. You really experienced the friction coming back the other way.

Taking a break from social media requires a difficult initial transition. However, returning to digital platforms after an absence can be even more jarring. After experiencing a life without constant digital noise, the negative feelings associated with social media become much more apparent. People often grow accustomed to the background stress of being constantly connected without realizing its toll.

You don't know how much negativity being on your phone all your time is injected into your life until you actually spend time away from it. We just get used to what it feels like to constantly be looking at that distraction. It is not until you get away from it that you realize it is like going from black and white to Technicolor.

Stepping away from the screen allows for a clarity that is hard to notice while in the middle of the habit. This shift in perspective reveals how much of the daily experience is colored by digital distractions. Removing these influences can make life feel more vibrant and focused.

The brain has a remarkable ability to adapt to different levels of friction. When technology removes resistance, it becomes scary because we get used to that ease. Many people turn to social media because it fills their time and provides a sense of enrichment without much effort. While these users might not have specific projects in mind, this habit often hides deeper potential.

I think a lot of people use the phone and social media because it fills their life, it provides some enrichment, and they aren't necessarily committed to specific projects. But one might argue that those people almost certainly have untapped creativity.

This lack of friction makes it difficult to return to work that requires deep focus. People struggling with productivity or burnout are often caught in this cycle. By choosing the easy path of digital consumption, they leave their own creative abilities untapped.

Phone overuse is often more than a bad habit. It functions as a psychological tool to fill a void in life. This void frequently stems from unmet potential or living out of alignment with personal values. Life involves many hardships and disappointments. Constant phone use acts as a way to paper over these difficulties and keep the reality of a situation at bay.

I think for a lot of people, it's papering over the void. You have this void in your life because there's unmet potential, unmet interest, living in misalignment with the things you care about.

The bright screen of a phone acts like a light that ruins your night vision. It prevents you from seeing the deeper issues that exist beyond the immediate distraction. The phone makes life bearable enough to continue without addressing the underlying gaps in fulfillment. This is why simply removing the phone is so challenging. Without the distraction, you are forced to look directly at the problems you have been hiding from yourself.

It's a way for some people of essentially putting a screen over that gaping void. And it just makes it bearable enough that you can kind of go on with life. If you just rip it out, you see the void. And that's really difficult.

Understanding phone use requires looking at the psychological environment where it happens. Without this context, the discussion becomes sterile. Throughout history, difficult times have often led to a rise in addictive behaviors as people look for ways to avoid their reality. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, newly industrialized urban areas saw high rates of alcohol consumption because life was incredibly hard. People lived in crowded tenements with very little autonomy, and they turned to taverns as a means of escape.

If we don't recognize the psychological realities in which phone use happens, it really becomes a very sort of sterile conversation. In hard times, we look for ways to avoid it. And the phones have been offering us a way to do it.

The current struggle with digital devices mirrors these past patterns. Just as the hardships of the industrial era fueled the movement that led to Prohibition, technology now serves as a primary tool for avoidance. This behavior is a recurring response to environments that feel overwhelming or restrictive.

A recent experiment involving 1,600 people who quit social media for 30 days revealed a clear distinction between those who succeeded and those who failed. The group included a wide mix of ages rather than just university students. For most participants, the initial period was extremely difficult. However, the primary factor for success was not willpower. Those who tried to quit simply because they felt social media was bad often failed. They attempted to white knuckle their way through the month without making any other changes to their lives.

The people who did succeed followed my advice to incredibly aggressively pursue alternatives in those 30 days. Go learn new hobbies, join things right away.

Success depended on filling the void left by social media with new hobbies and community engagement. By aggressively pursuing alternative activities, participants found it much easier to sustain the change. This suggests that breaking a digital habit is less about restriction and more about finding meaningful ways to spend time.

Technical settings like grayscale or notification rules are often the first things people change when trying to reduce phone use. However, these tactics are less important than how you fill your time. In a study of fifteen hundred people who spent thirty days without their phones, those who succeeded did not just rely on willpower. Instead, they focused on reflection and experimentation. They actively sought out new activities and experiences that they actually enjoyed.

The people who succeeded were the people who aggressively were exploring through reflection, experimentation, what they actually enjoyed. They were finding new activities, they were going out and trying new things, they were trying to fill in their life in interesting ways. They had a much easier time not having their phone.

People who simply try to resist the urge to use their phone often fail because their willpower eventually buckles. This failure happens when there is a void in their life that they have not addressed. When you fill that void with meaningful activity, connection, and self reflection, the need to constantly check your device disappears. The void becomes much smaller, so you no longer feel the need to hide from it or cover it up with digital distractions.

The most effective way to reduce phone usage has very little to do with the device itself or the habits surrounding it. Instead, the solution lies in the quality of the rest of your life. When you fill your time with meaningful challenges and build a values-based narrative for your life, the phone begins to lose its appeal. Connecting with others, sacrificing time for people, and seeking out moments of awe activate the human brain in ways that a screen cannot replicate.

The more you activate your deeply human brain to all the possibilities of human life, the more stupid that little rectangle is going to seem and the easier it is going to seem to say, why would I look at an AI generated short form video on a small rectangle when I have a life to live?

Traditional addiction science often focuses on the mechanics of why we are addicted and suggests tactics like taking regular breaks. While this science is valuable, it often fails to address the underlying psychology of why the behavior happens in the first place. Rather than trying to white-knuckle your way through phone addiction or simply doing something less bad, the focus should be on making your life better. When your reality is engaging and your intentions are made manifest in the world, the shallow alternative of digital distraction becomes far less appealing.

Using AI tools as a secondary information source can help readers navigate challenging classic literature. ChatGPT is useful for generating chapter summaries, identifying major themes, or explaining the historical significance of a text. While these tools are helpful, users should remain cautious. AI tends to provide information it thinks the user wants to hear and can sometimes mix details incorrectly. Following the links to the actual articles the AI references provides a more reliable way to understand the primary source material.

It takes a while for your brain to fire up all the networks needed to make sense of written words and turn it into sort of an internal cognitive understanding. You don't want to be interrupting every few pages to go look something up.

Maintaining focus is crucial when reading difficult books. Readers should avoid interrupting their flow every few pages to search for information. It is more effective to queue up understanding by reading a summary or background article before starting a chapter. Completing an entire section in one sitting preserves the brain's focus and makes the material more approachable.

Writing in a notebook is a two-step process. First, you capture every thought that feels relevant to a topic. You should not worry if these initial thoughts are good or bad. Most thoughts captured in the moment will not be useful later. The real magic happens during the filtering stage. This is when you read back through your notes and identify which ideas have staying power.

The value happens after you filter. The notebooks collect novel brain reconfigurations so you do not forget them. Most are not good. The magic happens when you read over all of these and pull out the good ones.

Observations often come from the excitement of a new experience. A person might feel a strong reaction while attending a car race for the first time. They might write down thoughts that feel deep in the moment but later realize it was just the novelty of the experience. The ideas worth keeping are the ones that recur. If an observation appears several times over several months, it carries real weight. The goal is to get thoughts onto paper so they do not cause stress. Even a bad idea might help set up a better idea later. A notebook is not a precious document for others to see. It is a personal tool for raw capture.

Get it down and get it out of your head so you are not stressed about it. You do not know what that will influence in the future. That idea might be terrible, but it might set up some other ideas that are good down the line.

Media history shows that most forms of communication do not monetize well. Printed newspapers and books work, but pamphlets and blogs often struggle. Paid newsletters have found a successful niche, yet this does not mean every writer will find financial success. The internet allows anyone to reach an audience, but it does not guarantee a living. Most media projects fail, and that is a normal part of the industry.

The Internet meant everyone could publish text. That was a major breakthrough. But did that mean we then had hundreds of millions of people making a living as writers? No, because it still has to be good. Broadening access to information does not go hand in hand with broadening the number of people who can make a living off information.

The primary concern with current platforms is the risk of a single company dominating the medium. When one player is in charge, they often fall into a cycle of enshittification. This happens when a company shifts its focus from being useful to maximizing profit at the expense of the user experience. This cycle often results in algorithmically curated content and excessive advertisements that drive users away.

To prevent this, there must be independent alternatives and open source tools. If a platform begins to prioritize addictive slop over quality content, writers must have the ability to move their audiences elsewhere. The technology behind email newsletters is not overly complex. If the main platforms become worse, writers can simply take their lists to a new service with a better interface.

December serves as a dedicated time for reading thrillers, a tradition that recently involved three classic adventure novels. Michael Crichton's Airframe stands out as a masterclass in the genre, despite lacking the high-concept hooks like dinosaurs or time travel found in his more famous works. The story focuses on an airplane accident investigation, weaving technical details of aviation safety and corporate politics into a perfectly paced narrative. Even without a fantastical premise, the ticking clock element and mechanical depth keep the reader deeply engaged.

Airframe had the least high concept plot, but it was just perfectly executed. You get really interested in the mechanics of airplane function and airplane safety. There is a ticking clock element to it which keeps it moving, and the plot just rolls. You really care what is going on, even though you do not actually care about the subject matter at all.

Another Crichton selection, The Great Train Robbery, offers a dramatized look at a real-life Victorian event. Written early in his career, it follows a structure similar to a heist film where the complexity of the con only becomes clear at the very end. While the Victorian prose can be a bit dense, the research into the mechanics of the robbery provides a fascinating look at the era.

Isaac Asimov's Fantastic Voyage represents a different era of publishing. Based on a movie, the novel follows a team shrunk down in a submarine to travel through a human body. It belongs to a category of short, fast-paced paperback originals that are less common today. These books prioritize pure entertainment, moving quickly through the plot without over-explaining the science or stretching the story beyond its necessary length.