Chris Best

It doesn't have your best interest at heart.

It is optimizing you for some end that is not the end that you would pick.

It's the economy of clicks.

It's the attention economy.

And the thing that's different on Substack, it's not perfect.

It's not a panacea.

It doesn't solve all the problems.

But it's like, ultimately, the way that we win is by helping you discover something you deeply value to the point where you choose to pay for it.

If I let you sit back on a Sunday and think, you know, as my best self, what do I want to spend my time thinking about and reading and what do I want to support with my dollar to see more of in the world, you might still make a bad choice.

It's not perfect, but we've given you that choice.

We've put that choice in front of you in a better way that lets you still make a real choice, but it's sort of as your better self in a way that's more congruent with the life you want to live and the person you want to become.

I mean, the way I think of this is I think text versus video and image is a real delineation.

Another one that I think about a lot is sort of short form versus long form.

And in some ways, there's more similarity between a long essay and a long, thoughtful, conversational podcast.

than between a long essay and like a tweet, let's say.

And when I think about letting people make new parts of the culture that matter, I think the other mediums matter too.

And the same way that in texts, having space for long form and deeper relationships and those things, I actually think the same is true in audio and video.

And there's a lot of overlap between people who want to write and people who want to have a deep conversation.

And the same lesson that we've learned through the app, which is actually, if you want to power deep long form reading, the best way to do that is not to only have deep long form reading, it's to also have some ability to have short conversational things, to share quotes, to share pieces, to have the conversation, but then to give you a way into the deep stuff.

I actually think the same is true for video as well, but time will tell.