Welcome to 2024 and the third year of Comment is Freed. This substack has taken on a life well beyond anything either of us could have expected when we decided to try it out over Christmas lunch in 2021. We had thought it would be small side project for occasional thoughts, but it’s turned into a big part of both our lives. There are now 223 posts - totalling around three quarters of a million words - in
That is generous of you to maintain the subscription price of £35 for existing subscribers. May your subscriber numbers continue to grow healthily over the coming year. Also, after reading Peter Attia’s superb book Outlive:The Art and Science of Longevity, a risk assessed approach to a healthy life, make sure you get at least eight hours decent sleep every night.
Hi Sam, firstly I ought to say that I think your posts are always insightful, unbiased and thought-provoking and I am very happy to carry on paying £35 a year to receive them. The reason for writing however is just to ask why, with 41,000 subscribers paying (assuming they all pay £35 per year) a combined total of £1.4m, it's necessary to increase the price to new subscribers? Is £1.4m not enough to cover your costs in writing your posts? Is there a large team employed behind the scenes doing research for you? Or do substack have hefty fees you have to pay? Or something else? I expect others may have the same question but are not as shameless as me to raise it! Maybe explaining how the subscription income is spent would help people (like me!) understand the context better. Thanks
Hi Mike - entirely fair question. The answer is that most of the 41k aren't paying subscribers but free sign ups. If we were making £1.4 million a year we definitely would not feel the need to raise the price!
There are also fees (around 15% of what we make gets paid to Substack or Stripe) but, yeah, the main reason is just that most don't pay. At some point I love to grow to the point where we could hire a small team as some of the bigger US policy ones like Matt Yglesias do.
Sam, congratulations on reaching such a large subscriber base! You and your father are providing a great service and insights for all of us around the world. Please, make it easy to find your analysis of UK
Elections as these are just as important to me (my wife and I are in the US, but she is a Spanish citizen and I work in Canada often) and I like to keep up with happening in UK and the EU.
Thanks Sam, that lot should keep you busy through the year! Looking forward to your in-depth nerdy analysis (and specifically your view on my constituency - Braintree, and whether my MP James Cleverly can manage to keep up his current offensive comment output and maintain his seat!
I think this is a pretty generous offer to be able to read the kind of information your Substack provides. I do subscribe to others that are double the price, so many thanks.
Firstly thanks for the great content over the past few years -this is one of the best Substacks I read and I think the only paid one I subscribe to. However, have you put any thought into a response regarding the current content moderation policies of Substack? At the moment they are still not demonetising or removing Nazi accounts (https://substack.com/@hamish/note/c-45811343) and to be blunt I am deeply uncomfortable with my subscription funding them. Is there a plan to migrate to a different platform?
That is generous of you to maintain the subscription price of £35 for existing subscribers. May your subscriber numbers continue to grow healthily over the coming year. Also, after reading Peter Attia’s superb book Outlive:The Art and Science of Longevity, a risk assessed approach to a healthy life, make sure you get at least eight hours decent sleep every night.
Thanks Tony.
Hi Sam, firstly I ought to say that I think your posts are always insightful, unbiased and thought-provoking and I am very happy to carry on paying £35 a year to receive them. The reason for writing however is just to ask why, with 41,000 subscribers paying (assuming they all pay £35 per year) a combined total of £1.4m, it's necessary to increase the price to new subscribers? Is £1.4m not enough to cover your costs in writing your posts? Is there a large team employed behind the scenes doing research for you? Or do substack have hefty fees you have to pay? Or something else? I expect others may have the same question but are not as shameless as me to raise it! Maybe explaining how the subscription income is spent would help people (like me!) understand the context better. Thanks
Hi Mike - entirely fair question. The answer is that most of the 41k aren't paying subscribers but free sign ups. If we were making £1.4 million a year we definitely would not feel the need to raise the price!
There are also fees (around 15% of what we make gets paid to Substack or Stripe) but, yeah, the main reason is just that most don't pay. At some point I love to grow to the point where we could hire a small team as some of the bigger US policy ones like Matt Yglesias do.
Thanks Sam, that makes complete sense. I'd assumed every use of the word "subscribers" meant "paying subscribers". Keep up the good work!
Sam, congratulations on reaching such a large subscriber base! You and your father are providing a great service and insights for all of us around the world. Please, make it easy to find your analysis of UK
Elections as these are just as important to me (my wife and I are in the US, but she is a Spanish citizen and I work in Canada often) and I like to keep up with happening in UK and the EU.
Thanks Sam, that lot should keep you busy through the year! Looking forward to your in-depth nerdy analysis (and specifically your view on my constituency - Braintree, and whether my MP James Cleverly can manage to keep up his current offensive comment output and maintain his seat!
You won’t be suffering the fraudulent card payment claims after trailing the year ahead as excitingly as this!
Ha!
Sounds good.
Does the tick in the email mean sun is up to date?
I think so but it will renew automatically (with an email telling you it's about to)....
I think this is a pretty generous offer to be able to read the kind of information your Substack provides. I do subscribe to others that are double the price, so many thanks.
Hi Sam,
Firstly thanks for the great content over the past few years -this is one of the best Substacks I read and I think the only paid one I subscribe to. However, have you put any thought into a response regarding the current content moderation policies of Substack? At the moment they are still not demonetising or removing Nazi accounts (https://substack.com/@hamish/note/c-45811343) and to be blunt I am deeply uncomfortable with my subscription funding them. Is there a plan to migrate to a different platform?