I think you are too hard on Yglesias. I think his rise to Substack coincided with a narrowing of viewpoint among liberal publications, which made his writing more interesting. I admit he writes a stinker from time to time (especially on international topics imho), but overall he raises good points, especially on effective political strategy. He also checks his predictions every January and calls himself out.
I wonder if Yglesias would even think I'm being hard on him! But having been reading his work for a long time, I know that he's been posting regularly -- and quite successfully -- well before he made the move to Substack.
I mean, it's a jokey snarky disrespectful tone but that's what we come for at the Max Read Substack and I think it's a pretty faithful recounting of exactly what I was saying to Dan Zak.
It used to be that the ad sales guys would sell a certain amount of ads. Then the number of ads sold would determine the number of pages (magazine) or column-inches (newspaper) of editorial that you needed to run. Then writers and editors would need to fight with each other for the privilege of getting more space in which to put their ideas. In that economy of scarce pages, you would "win" by being able to produce a really really really really good article if given plenty of time and resources to work on it.
The internet doesn't work like that, you can always just publish more stuff. So you "win" on the internet by being able to produce pretty good articles in a short span of time with meagre resources.
I think you are too hard on Yglesias. I think his rise to Substack coincided with a narrowing of viewpoint among liberal publications, which made his writing more interesting. I admit he writes a stinker from time to time (especially on international topics imho), but overall he raises good points, especially on effective political strategy. He also checks his predictions every January and calls himself out.
I wonder if Yglesias would even think I'm being hard on him! But having been reading his work for a long time, I know that he's been posting regularly -- and quite successfully -- well before he made the move to Substack.
I mean, it's a jokey snarky disrespectful tone but that's what we come for at the Max Read Substack and I think it's a pretty faithful recounting of exactly what I was saying to Dan Zak.
It used to be that the ad sales guys would sell a certain amount of ads. Then the number of ads sold would determine the number of pages (magazine) or column-inches (newspaper) of editorial that you needed to run. Then writers and editors would need to fight with each other for the privilege of getting more space in which to put their ideas. In that economy of scarce pages, you would "win" by being able to produce a really really really really good article if given plenty of time and resources to work on it.
The internet doesn't work like that, you can always just publish more stuff. So you "win" on the internet by being able to produce pretty good articles in a short span of time with meagre resources.
He celebrated the deaths of 1000 child laborers in a factory collapse. I don't think it's possible to be too hard on him.