Ep 387: Can Substack Save Journalism? + Viral Advice for Ignoring Your Phone

Right about a year ago I took Paul Krugman’s exit from the Times as another sign that old media was unraveling, but a quiet update changed the story. His Substack is thriving, so today I run the numbers, test the optimism, and debut a practices segment on using your phone less.

What’s Krugman actually doing? He’s posting daily, mixing quick takes with deeper essays, offering a paid tier around seven dollars a month, and he’s built roughly half a million subscribers.

How much might that earn? Using typical conversion ranges, even conservative math lands him in low seven figures annually, and a strong scenario pushes into multi‑millions.

How hard is the work? Nate Silver’s playbook says publish often, write fast, and treat it like a real full‑time job with the upside of flexibility.

How many others clear that bar? Leaderboards suggest only a few dozen newsletters sit at the half‑million‑plus tier, which likely equals a few dozen million‑dollar operations.

What about a good living below the very top? In politics, culture, and tech, many top‑twenty titles likely earn mid six figures on common pricing, while business and finance often charge more per reader. A reasonable estimate is hundreds of writers making strong incomes.

Can newsletters meet newspaper scale? Papers once hit tens of millions in daily circulation and huge ad revenue, though today they’re far smaller.

Substack reports millions of paid readers now and aims for about fifty million. At that level, paid newsletters could rival current newspaper circulation and capture a real slice of revenue, though with far fewer full‑time writers.

Are newsletters better or worse? They lack institutional guardrails like fact‑checking and on‑the‑ground reporting, but they win on transparent bias, writer quality, and less corporate or political pressure.

What could derail the promise? Platform capture and the slow slide into engagement feeds. If the app chases time‑on‑site over writer‑reader trust, the medium degrades.

The fix is more open, WordPress‑like newsletter stacks so writers can earn without one gatekeeper deciding the experience.

On to practices. A clip I did with Andrew Huberman about quitting social media went big, so let’s pull out what resonated.

My team dropped social apps while traveling, and the tough part was actually coming back. You feel the lack of friction leaving and the heavy drag returning.

You don’t notice the constant drag until you step away, then the phone feels like sludge when you return.

Here’s the deeper frame. Many people overuse their phones to fill a hole in life, not because they’re weak.

In a thirty‑day experiment with over a thousand volunteers, white‑knuckling failed. The wins came from people who flooded their days with new activities, hobbies, and real connections.

Build meaning first, then tweak settings. When life is rich, the rectangle loses its pull.

Victoria asks if keeping a phone nearby to use ChatGPT while reading classics is okay.

Use it as a primer or a debrief, not mid‑chapter. Skim themes or summaries, then read in long, uninterrupted stretches, and click through to real sources when possible.

Jason wonders what’s worth writing in his notebooks.

Capture freely and filter later. Repeated themes and standout notes are your keepers; most entries are scaffolding that helps you uncover the good ideas.

Dirk asks if Substack is the platform of the moment given search decay, social meltdown, and shrinking media budgets.

It is the current path, but the risk is concentration. Expect more indie clones, and remember media always has a narrow peak of earners; access expands faster than sustainable careers.

I closed with a quick thriller roundup for December and asked for feedback on the two‑segment format. We’ll be back next week, and as always, stay deep.