[zahlman]

What if I want people to read me without needing a subscription or email disclosure?

What's the email for anyway? So that you can get sent notifications of new posts? ... People read those kinds of emails? I always curse myself for finding a way to get them sent to myself, and file them away somewhere until I can figure out how to turn them off.

[wofo]

My blog used to be RSS only, because I thought email subscriptions were a plot of "content creators" and not something readers actually wanted... until one of my readers told me he really recommended adding email as an option. I did, and a surprising number of people subscribed since then.

[6510]

For a decade or~so I subscribe to newsletters and had skip inbox rules that archived them in a folder about the subject. Eventually I never really looked at the folders but it never bothered me as I don't really see them. Not sure if that means it works or not.

[Swizec]

> Eventually I never really looked at the folders but it never bothered me as I don't really see them

Most people don't read most newsletters. Some people read some.

This Saturday I sent an email. It has since been opened by 26% of my subscribers, that's 4,600 people. 780 people clicked on a link.

I tweeted the same email as a link and got pretty good engagement! 20 likes, 2 retweets – that's decent for me these days. It was seen 1400 times. 78 people clicked on a link.

I have roughly the same number of followers as I do email subscribers.

[wofo]

Hahaha it could well be that people are merely hoarding newsletter emails. I hope readers derive _some_ value from the emails, but since I'm not doing it to drive up "engagement metrics" I don't really mind.

[6510]

There was a time when google toolbar had a search gmail button. I would use it to open gmail using whatever query was inthere. It happened quite often that it found newsletters matching the query. It takes quite a bit of hoarding to accomplish.

Perhaps it is even a better solution than website that vanish eventually. I might one day make a newsletter with links like:

    example.com?re=[e-mail]&article=1234

Then mail you the requested article. With RE: and the same title they will even be threaded.

[nickthegreek]

> What if I want people to read me without needing a subscription or email disclosure?

Medium is where you can post and get a bit of what substack offers while giving you the ability to make your post freely available via the web.

> What's the email for anyway? So that you can get sent notifications of new posts?

On substack, you get the whole newsletter in the email. you dont need to go to a website. I use https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ to put them in my rss though.

[skippyfish]

> I use https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ to put them in my rss though.

Every Substack has an RSS at /feed.rss.

[hungryhobbit]

Pick Medium, it's great ... if you want a paywall to turn away half your visitors!

[nickthegreek]

The author has the option to enable that or not.

[hungryhobbit]

And (judging by the number of Medium articles I've been turned away from) 95% of all authors leave it on.

[nickthegreek]

Sure, but my comment was being given directly to a user who asked for a platform that allowed X, Y and Z. I was providing them with an answer that met their stated criteria. I don’t see how other people’s configuration is of any concern.

[benoliver999]

My RSS reader accepts email newsletters so I subscribe using that and funnel them all into feedbin

[goostavos]

...I use email notifications. I follow very few people (fewer than 10), so I'm always happy when an email pops up letting me know they've written something.

I don't pay attention to my RSS reader, and barely use social media. For whatever reason, email works for me.