Presumably different audiences will prefer different writers, as they always have.

Yes but like food diet, is junk food more profitable or are staples more profitable?

What should we aim for?

If junk is more profitable, is that okay? Do we all jump on that wagon while the going is good, or do we think a minute about what is more fulfilling?

Media outlets other than substack are also hiring terrible people, and optimizing for trash.

To me the largest difference between large corporate outlets and substack (and other reader-financed journalists) is that large corporate outlets will keep people employed for years that nobody wants to read and could never support themselves independently - journalists who are only important and interesting because of their access to the outlet. The outlets themselves keep those journalists around as pure vehicles for the opinions of their owners.

At least with these outlets, the owners are the readers. If the readers like trash, they'll pay for trash. If the owners like quality, they'll demand it. I don't have to worry about how the subject of the article will affect Bezos's net worth, or wonder how David Brooks, Maureen Dowd, or Thomas Friedman are still employed.

But still, we’re not sure that the content will be free of external influence taking advantage of the writer’s reputation.

Obviously if they peddle too many interested articles they'll likely get caught, but if they do it once in a while or take payment from opposing interests, etc., who’ll know the difference?

There is no "we" here, certainly not in the sense that "do we think a minute". People can choose for themselves just fine, and they'll do so whether I wring my hands about it or not. If you want to be worried about other people, go ahead but leave me out of it. :)

Obviously trash sells and it always has ("The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience"), but some people care more about things like truth and style than they do about money.

This is the world we're living in. Unfortunately, I can give you only one upvote...

Regardless of whether Doritos are more profitable we still have millions of acres of staple crops grown each year. There is no shortage of good writing but it may not come in microwaveable packets. If the majority of the people don't care then that's the downside to living in a free society where each has their choice.

Majority people's staples are now junk. I expect the same thing to happen in media.

One of the dangers is that it turns out audiences actually prefer writers constrained and filtered and checked by editors.

But by the time they realize that, editors won’t exist any more.

I'd like my journalists to be constrained by the truth, and paid editors in the context of a "traditional" newspaper are one possible way to achieve that. However, if you believe the stats on this, trust for traditional news sources is at record lows.

I personally don't trust traditional news sources very much. Therefore, I'm open to trying something different. I've been a happy subscriber to a handful of Substack journalists for a few months now. It's too soon to say whether this will be a lasting improvement, but it's hard to do worse than the mainstream media.

I'm curious, as I tend to trust many of the large media outlets, especially the NYT and WaPo.

1) Which outlets do you consider to be the "mainstream media" or "traditional media"?

And 2) why don't you trust them?

Rather than annoy the HN mods by derailing this conversation into politics, I can answer in detail to you directly. If you want that, could you update your bio on HN to include your email address?

I appreciate that both for helping me keep it non-politics on HN and also for being willing to reach out.

I've updated my email in my bio, hope to hear from you soon.

> why don't you trust them?

Have we already forgotten the NYT and WaPo pushing to get us into the Iraq War on false pretenses?

Glenn Greenwald gets into this a lot. As one recent example, WaPo misquoted Trump's comments on his infamous phone call with the Georgia secretary of state and this was not corrected until two months later when the Wall Street Journal obtained a recording of the call: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-do-big-media-outlets-so...

Indeed. Readers of WaPo should be outraged the paper took one source at their word when it came to statements from the President. Zero confirmation.

And it turns out it was all made up.

Do we know how many writers on Substack/Medium/independent blogs employ an editor or researcher in some capacity? I've only seen occasional mention, e.g., Kevin Kelly has said that he employs a librarian as a full time researcher. But the absence of mention isn't necessarily a strong indicator to the negative.

If substack stars need an editor, I assume they hire one.

Some probably already do.

Very unlikely that they won’t exist anymore.

And whichever low number they are reduced to, they will start to grow again because there will be people willing to pay for their services.

some of the more successful writers on substack are hiring people to do editorial work so even with this model it doesnt go away entirely

It depends on the reader. I, for example, always value, when I learn something new. No matter if it supports or questions my current views.

The issue with some Substack authors is they fall into Productivity Bullshit Industrial Complex (https://99u.adobe.com/articles/55974/the-creative-worlds-bul...) cathegory which is not very novel for anyone, who have read a few pieces in this space.