Is This Thing Working?

Eighteen months on Substack.

Image by Jim Cooke.

I launched How Things Work on May 1, 2023. Based on feedback from people who have done this before, I gave myself an 18-month runway to build this into a sustainable publication. The deal I made with myself was that I would do this like a job, and see if it would become something that would support me like a real job, at a time when traditional journalism jobs have been crumbling away.

It has now been 18 months. Happy anniversary to all of us. For those of you who are interested, let me tell you where we stand.

This publication has never had a paywall. From the beginning, I have kept all of my writing here free to read, and asked readers like you to voluntarily become paid subscribers to support this place. Whenever I talk to other people who have launched independent publications like this, they usually respond to this fact by saying—in the kindest and most supportive way— “Wow! That’s stupid.”

From a business perspective, they are correct. Almost everyone who makes a living on Substack or in similar places has some sort of a paywall, because paywalls, I am told, are effective at converting free readers into paying ones. Why haven’t I put one up here? A few reasons. One, when I write something I like for it be read by anyone who cares to read it. Restricting the audience on purpose grates on me in an unpleasant way. Two, there is a long term, ongoing trend in media that is fundamentally unhealthy: As the advertising money that used to support journalism has been sucked away by tech companies, more journalism retreats behind paywalls to fill the financial gap, resulting in a situation in which journalism becomes a luxury good. Those who can afford it have access to high quality information, and everyone else is left with the (often low quality, sensationalistic, propagandized) dregs. The more this continues, the more the public will be divided into haves and have-nots of information, in the same way that we are already divided by wealth. I am hardly the New York Freaking Times over here, but I would like to do my small part to resist this trend if at all possible.

Third, and most quixotically, I just like to believe that this model of media can work. This is socialist media: The people who can afford to pay a little bit all pay a little bit, and everyone, regardless of wealth, can read the publication. It’s just a nice and healthy and generous and humane and civilized way to do things. Because I write constantly about the need to evolve American society in the direction of those values, I see no reason why they shouldn’t be able to work here. I do not aspire to be a Substack millionaire with a horde of fervent fans all agreeing with me in a walled garden. I aspire to have a sustainable publication and make a fair living and write what I want so anyone can read it. (There have never been enough people who agree with me to support a cult, anyhow.)

One notable aspect of this model is that it demands something from you, the reader. Specifically, it demands that you, like me, care enough about the existence of this publication to choose to pay something for it. Because there is no paywall, you do not have to do this. You can just read this for free and go on with your life. Implicit in this model, though, is the fact that if not enough people care enough to voluntarily pay something, this place will go away. A terrible business plan! Wholly divorced from the principles of successful marketing! Yet this quality of demanding something from both the writer and the readers lends this place a meaning that I did not feel when I was working regular salaried jobs. To all of you who have bought into this idea and helped to support How Things Work over the past 18 months, I really thank you. You are doing the work, just as much as me.

I set a personal goal to reach 20,000 total subscribers in 18 months. Today, I am about 95% of the way there. Pretty good! The Substack people say that, usually, ten percent of total subscribers will become paid subscribers. Here, it is more like 8% of total subscribers who pay. This, I guess, is predictable—with no paywall, a lower portion of people will pay. It also tells me that I am leaving a chunk of revenue on the table by maintaining this model. I’m willing to accept that, but I do still need to increase my baseline revenue here in order to reach a sustainable salary. As I have mentioned before, I would also like to do more on the ground reporting for this site, which is an expensive proposition. Achieving these things while maintaining the current model means just speaking plainly to you all and saying: If you can afford six bucks a month or $55 a year to keep How Things Work publishing, please hit that button and become a paid subscriber. I am not willing to give up on this model yet. It can work.

What You Can Do to Help

All of the subscribers to How Things Work come here through word of mouth. Sending this publication and its stories around to people you know is a great way to spread the word.

You can also purchase gift subscriptions for the people in your life who you are trying to subtly radicalize.

If you would like to make a one-time donation to our reporting fund, you can do so here:

But the very best thing you can do—for How Things Work, for me and my bills, and to demonstrate to the media world that this sort of socialist funding model is a viable one—is to become a paid subscriber today. I have heard anecdotally that doing this makes you feel far better about yourself than any subscription to a cornier, less righteous media outlet ever will.

I get emails fairly regularly from people who say that they enjoy this site but cannot afford to pay for it. These emails often have an apologetic tone. If this is you: Do not apologize! Just keep on reading. All of you who read this site are the only thing that redeem all the time I have put into writing it. Those of you who read it for free, thanks to the support of people who can pay for it, are who this whole model is for. We’re all in it together. Even if you sometimes think I have written something dumb. That’s okay.

Now, a few miscellaneous items for our 18-month check-in.

The Most Popular Posts of the Past Six Months

1. How to Think About Politics Without Wanting to Kill Yourself. There are Enemies, and then there are Cowards.

2. Cars Have Fucked Up This Country Bad. The car-centric age of development is one long mistake.

3. The Left Is Not Joe Biden’s Problem. Joe Biden Is. Without a theory of change, nothing changes.

4. Everyone Into The Grinder. It is good to make powerful people participate in public systems.

5. How the “Working Class Republican” Scam Works. A brief description of how this is all gonna go.

Comments

This site has a pretty active comment section. I love this. This is great. It is not that common to find decent comment sections online these days. I encourage all of you to leave comments whenever you feel moved to do so. With a couple of guidelines.

A good comment section is one that adds something to the story above it. It is a place that you can read after you read the main story and find something new. In depth discussions, people with expertise weighing in, reasoned disagreements. I don’t expect comments to be essays. But I do ask that you try not to leave comments that amount to “This (person/ place/ political philosophy/ essay/ etc) sucks.” That is not very interesting. You can certainly make the case that any of these things sucks, but please do it with actual arguments. Let’s keep our quality control in place around here. You can also argue with other commenters—of course!—but please do it respectfully, and focus on the underlying ideas. We can do it. I believe in us.

The Next Six Months

I have been meaning to add some merch for sale here. That is on my list. I have a really cool t-shirt in mind. Also, as I said above, I want to increase the amount of reporting. There is no way to get around the fact that reporting is more time-consuming and more expensive than writing opinion pieces. Ideally, How Things Work will come to have a proportional mix of reporting, essays, and interviews. Investing more time and money into reporting here is going to be something that comes with growing the revenue of this site. Rest assured it is on my mind.

If you have other suggestions for things you would like to see around here, please let me know, via email or in the comment section below.

Labor, in Context

How Things Work does not have any strict content guidelines, but at least half of what I write here tends to be about labor, the labor movement, labor in politics, or other labor-related issues. Interestingly, the readership numbers on my stories here confirm something that I learned a long time ago: Labor does not get a lot of traffic. Almost all of the most popular things I write here are about non-labor topics. Still, I keep writing about labor because I know that it is central to the broader challenges that America faces. Trying to get readers who have no natural interest in labor issues to start thinking about why labor issues are important has occupied a good chunk of my career in journalism.

If you work in a non-union workplace, you should unionize it in 2025. Contact EWOC for help, or email me directly.

My ideas on this topic are spelled out in my book “The Hammer.” Let me immodestly say that the book is not boring—it’s reported all over the country and it has many exciting and inspiring and heartbreaking stories of workers and their struggles. The book was published in February, and I have spent much of this year going around the country speaking to people about it. If the ideas that I write about on this website make sense to you, and you’re interested in how this all fits into a big-picture understanding of how America got broken and how it can get fixed, I think you might like reading the book. You can order it wherever they sell books.

I have a few more book events planned this year as well:

• This Sunday, November 3, at 11 a.m.: NYC. At the New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th St. Event link here.

• Thursday, December 5, 7 pm: Baltimore, MD. At Red Emma’s, 3128 Greenmount Ave. In conversation with Max Alvarez. Event link here.

• Saturday, December 28: Gainesville, FL. At The Lynx Books. Event link TK.

Finally

There’s a lot of junk to read in this world and I am honored that you all take the time to read How Things Work. The future of American electoral politics may be grim. But there are at least 20,000 good people right here who will make that future better. The forces of capitalism are trying to shrink the pool of journalists down to only those who attended Ivy League schools, wear button-up blue oxford shirts with designer eyeglasses, and make podcasts where they begin every sentence by pursing their lips and saying, “So…”

We don’t do that here. Our world is bigger than that. Together we will survive and thrive, my people. Let’s keep going.

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