Chris Best

The idea that this stuff is valuable and the idea that, you know, you should be willing to pay real money for something that

is as meaningful for your life as a great essay or a great podcast or a great book or a great community or any of these things.

That's actually a very big idea.

And once that engine starts to go, this is what you're seeing in the Substack app now.

The Substack app is the best place on the internet.

It's still very small compared to, you know, the other sort of at scale social networks.

But it's, you know, some of the best and smartest and most interesting, most creative things are happening there because of this different economic model.

It's kind of like there's like a, you know, a social contract and a philosophy behind it.

But at the time, you know, when we started, nobody thought that anybody would ever pay for anything.

I had this parlor trick because I would describe this idea for Substack to people and they would say, ah, that sounds nice.

It would be cool if it would be cool if writers got paid.

But, you know, no one's ever going to really pay for something on the Internet.

That's not how it works.

Like I would never people would tell me I would never pay for some person on the Internet.

And my parlor trick is I would say, well, who's your favorite writer?

And they'd say, you know, so-and-so I'd be like, would you pay five bucks a month for them?

And they would say, well, yeah, for them, for that person, I would, but that's different because they're really good.

They've, I've grown to trust them.

They've got this, they've got something, you know, there's something about that person that they love.

They wouldn't do it in the abstract, but they would do it in the specific.