Why I'm no longer paywalling content here

Thoughts about the Substack model

First: Here’s a neglected reminder that registration is OPEN for my Friday, August 23^rd Rule of Life Workshop. This four-hour workshop, held virtually from 11 am EST – 3 pm EST, will lead participants through the five-step process I’ve developed for writing and keeping a rule of life.

1.     Step One: Keep Company with God.

2.     Step Two: Name Your Givens.

3.     Step Three: Attend to Your Desires.

4.     Step Four: Articulate Faithful Habits.

5.     Step Five: Review and Revise.

If you’re interested to discern what matters in your most important roles, responsibilities and relationships and to actively practice a life of faithful love for God, neighbor, and self, I’d love to have you join me. You’ll receive a comprehensive workbook when you receive confirmation of your registration.

Don’t forget: subscribers are entitled to a 50% discount: AHCF50.

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I began writing this letter on Saturday, somewhere between South Bend and Chicago. We had just attended the memorial service for my aunt, which was a beautiful, honoring expression of love. Last week, I wrote her obituary, which felt like one of the most consequential writing tasks of recent years. If you haven’t caught up on some recent letters, I wrote about her recent death here and some of my own complicated emotions about our relationship.

Some of you may have seen the note I published on Substack last week in which I announced I will no longer paywall any content I offer here. “I’ve been of two minds about paid subscriptions on Substack,” I began in that note. On the one hand, I continue to believe deeply that writing is real work—work that is worthy of compensation. I am happy to see many of my writing friends earning money, even supporting their families with the good and consistent writing they offer to readers through their newsletters. I also experienced encouragement when your paid subscriptions began coming in at the end of last year, even if there was a part of me that felt a little sheepish and also a little surprised. Wow, people are investing in these Monday letters! On the other hand, when I got a discounted subscription to The Washington Post recently for $29, I couldn’t help but think, that’s just one subscription to my Substack for six months. It gave me pause to wonder about the model here at Substack.

I can’t help but wonder if it’s not a model that contributes to lamentable changes in the media landscape today, by which I mean the decline and demise of collaborative efforts (papers, magazines, etc.) and the increase in many individual efforts (i.e. Substack subscriptions, personal podcasts, etc.) I don’t know which is cause, which is effect, but I do think we suffer civically—and even spiritually—as we fragment in these ways.

One of the first decisions I made vocationally, more than ten years ago, was to put my best efforts toward writing that was communal: traditional publishing rather than self-publishing; online and magazine writing rather than building personal brand. Throughout the years, I have also chosen to support as many collaborative publication efforts that I can: The Dispatch, Christianity Today, Plough, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Image, The Atlantic, Comment and Ekstasis. Yes, that’s a lot of periodicals—and no, I never read them all. But my financial support is a way I hope to ensure that I can continue to enjoy these outlets (and write for these outlets) in the future.

Let me be clear: announcing my own decision to no longer paywall content is not a judgment on those who do. Let me also be clear that while I’ve paused paid subscriptions for now, I’ll reopen them in a month. I know there are people who want to invest in this work, and I also know that I’m encouraged by your investment. But I also know that I have been called to be a writer, not simply a “content generator.”

The difference between these two is consequential for me. The first seems to me slower, more deliberate, creative. Writing takes “simmering” time, time to think, posit, argue, defend, second-guess, revise. Content-generation is, by contrast, more urgent and time-pressed. You generate content so that you’re not forgotten, so algorithms don’t erase the memory of your having been alive. Its strategy is productive output, which is why many will choose to use AI in the game of words and more words. (I won’t.)

I don’t want to generate content for content’s sake—and I want to be attuned to ways in which I’m tempted to do so. This is certainly part of the reason I’m not longer going to paywall content. I will write at a pace that makes sense for the real living I want to do beyond my desk. (Note: this letter is being written on Tuesday morning because life is, in this season, so constantly lifey….)

All of this is to say that I’m coming to more and more clarity about the values and commitments that inform my work and life. This is in large part because of my evolving rule of life practice, which is always requiring prayer and reflection. I am becoming less afraid of being forgotten, less anxious about the frantic efforts I must make to substantiate and sustain my writing life.

If I hew close to my values and commitments, as informed by my abiding life in God, what shall I fear?