There's a whole slew of content being created in all forms, from newsletters, blog posts, books, podcasts, music, video games, video on demand and live video. A lot of it is actually really high-quality content. We're being inundated with too much good stuff. I see all these newsletters in my inbox I don't have time to read that I want to. Tv shows, youtube videos I want to watch but don't have time for. I'm listening to a podcast when I cook while I have a game on and a book in my bag.<p>It's like a really good problem to have tbh, but there's a problem with managing this. This week there was a post about how to pick a good non-fiction book. Figuring out what the best content for me for the time I have is the problem. It's a problem we all have right now.<p>Also that was a really well written post, a love letter to newsletters. I really enjoyed it.
I don’t mind newsletters, but I still prefer the anonymity of RSS. For every dedicated author as per the linked article there are ten company backed newsletters that will take your email address and use it as an advertising target on a specific subject. Illegal, but of course it happens.
I started a meme newsletter for my friends. I publish it occasionally - not on any schedule, and with whatever content and style I feel like. It's like publishing a small, private website from time to time. And it's completely decentralized, and responses come back straight to me, so there's no fighting in the comments. I almost never post on social media anymore.
Newsletters feel like a step (or more like a plunge) back from subscribing to websites via RSS feeds. And yet this seems to be the direction that technology is moving in.<p>I’ve chosen not to subscribe to certain blogs simply because I don’t want to place my email address in more hands who have no incentive to care about my privacy.
Some feed readers offer a private email address that you can subscribe to newsletters with, and see them alongside your other RSS feeds. My reader of choice (Feedbin) does this. It's one way to at least centralize them all in a place outside your email inbox.
I am so glad Craig mentions <a href="https://buttondown.email" rel="nofollow">https://buttondown.email</a>. It is such a great service, and Justin (the creator of Buttondown) is engaged and friendly with his users.<p>I use Buttondown for my newsletter and would highly recommend it!
As a newsletter guy myself (see <a href="https://tedium.co/" rel="nofollow">https://tedium.co/</a>), one that focuses less on link lists and more on longer-form storytelling, I look at email as a vessel that helps lessen the effect of the platform on the creative outlet. It's one of many, but still a vessel. If you read my content in your inbox, great! If you want it on the web, it's there, too. In your feed (<a href="https://feed.tedium.co/" rel="nofollow">https://feed.tedium.co/</a>)? You can have it there, too. I'll even syndicate it. My only limitation is that it's something that I can control the distribution of, not Facebook or Twitter or Medium. Maybe I'll share the content on those platforms, but I won't let it be my primary vessel.<p>I think, ultimately, this is the benefit I see of the newsletter mechanism—it's the ability to control your destiny as a writer and distributor. We simply do not allow for enough of that in this platform-driven era. So let's minimize the platforms.<p>After an era in which platforms have had so much control, it's great to see writers figure out that there are ways around all that. Kudos to Craig, Tim Carmody, and other writers that have been willing to put this kind of work into their business models.
Somewhat related:<p>Create an email filter that moves any email with the word “unsubscribe” into its own folder out of the inbox.<p>It’s an amazing signal for separating direct and bulk mail.
Why the obnoxious "sign up for my newsletter" popup?<p>The best reason I can think of is it gets more people to sign up to the newsletter. (Who are these people, that would sign up for a newsletter b/c something interrupted them reading the blogpost, but wouldn't sign up on their own?).<p>A popup is nice for the people who would sign up for a newsletter anyway, but a PITA for anyone else who cares to read the blogpost's content, right?
The rise of Slack has made me love and appreciate email even more. I love that one of the oldest internet technologies is actually decentralized and thriving...makes me bullish that something out of the crypto space will one day work.
I love the python and postgresql weekly newsletters. Concise, very targeted info, no anxiety of privacy issues, etc. I dont directly click on links though, just DDG search of the library or article.<p>And, I usually can access the email from my office inbox, so there's that.
Anyone know of a service that will summarize a batch of different news letters for you? Say you subscribe to 30 newsletters, but a lot of them contain fluff, legal & disclaimer, ads, etc - but you only want a summary of the good content sent to you on say a Sunday.<p>I would imagine the interface being a list of newsletters, with a drop down to say how much of the content you would like, an option for what time and what day you wish to recieve the summary and then the actual email to just be the summary with a single link to the full newsletter underneath.<p>Does something like this exist? My google-fu is returning nothing.
I see newsletters as a first level of curation/aggregation that helps managing the daily deluge of content/information.<p>I've built a database of newsletters, there's 500+ indexed and categorised so far.
I'm adding news ones daily, and would love some suggestions so i can grow this database.<p>I haven't build a standalone website to browse the db yet, but you can check out the newsletters and subscribe as RSS feeds with the rss reader i built (<a href="https://aktu.io/about" rel="nofollow">https://aktu.io/about</a>)
You know what we could use -- bare with me here -- a newsletter that is a collection of the best content from newsletters you might like.<p>A lot of these newsletters are very good (many are not as well). But the volume is just so high.<p>Same thing with news outlets. There is a huge supply of good content. But there isn't enough intelligent bundling to make it all work anymore. I recently paid for a Medium account, and the reason I did was that Medium is really good at giving you targeted content from a wide variety of sources.
This may sound strange, but I am subscribed to no
newsletters. In fact, I had no idea such specific,
elegant newsletters even existed. I may add to the
rainstorm, whether that's bad or good...I don't actually
know.<p>In any case, I'm working on site that is to hopefully
serve as a hub for 2d game developers to share their
scripts and thoughts freely, gaining access to "the
restricted sections" of the site as they contribute (and
yes, this is inspired by Pagemaster.) and as such, the
site will become a library over time.<p>People can take a penny, leave nothing, or give a roll of pennies and never take any pennies. People should have as much or as little access as they wish. The best thing about this idea I think is when users sign up for their "library
cards" they will actually receive something that
functions like one in digital form. (I may try to look
into making physical cards which I have designed
already! but I still have to work out the logistics of
that..., haha.)<p>When they have cards, they will instead
of "chcking out books", be able to create the books
that they want, similar to wikipedia's pdf/book system.
(Everything hosted on site will be open source too, to
be used for whatever purposes including commercial.)<p>And here's where the ourobouros comes back to bite, I
swear this isn't a tangent.<p>I think a newsletter would be a better place to start
for me to prototype this idea. WEven though the site is
under construction already. It will be in that state
for a long time too, as this is my first time developing
web content, instead of games! But I could do this.<p>Thanks for sharing! (I don't self promote in posts, but
if you are interested, just see my profile.)<p>Really enjoying the content of this website and am glad to have found it.
One thing to keep in mind when starting a newsletter: publish it somewhere so that content is also visible to other people who aren't subscribed to your newsletter. Unless of course you explicitly only want it to be visible to subscribers.<p>One easy way to do is by subscribing publish@publicemails.com to your newsletter. (Disclosure: I created <a href="https://publicemails.com" rel="nofollow">https://publicemails.com</a>, where this service is provided).
> Email is definitely not ideal, but it is: decentralized, reliable, and not going anywhere – and more and more, those feel like quasi-magical properties.<p>But wouldn’t a website hosted on a platform you control also serve this purpose? Even with the services mentioned in the essay you have a third-party looking over where you data is and have to rely on them if you ever want to retrieve your data back.<p>I guess you’d also have to add a method for facilitating contact though (uh… email?)
Any recommendations for newsletters pertaining to typical Hacker News interests, e.g. programming, start-up business, cybersecurity, technology, gaming, etc.?
I'm some sense, Email is the first social network. And decentralized as the author points out...<p>It would follow that if you want to leverage this platform you need to make better tools to enhance email writing and reading experience.<p>That interface hasn't changed much over the decades.