The Newsletter is Dead
At least in the format we're all trying to create...
The Newsletter is Dead.
(Man, I love hyperbole… but hear me out.)
I’ve always been great at spotting the pattern in advance, though usually I just acknowledge it and move on.
Whether you’re new to writing newsletters, or if you’ve been around a while, you have likely seen that there are more people getting into it.
But most are going about it all wrong…
Everyone is starting a newsletter
Most of us think, ooh, I’ll do this, maybe it’ll make enough money to quit my job, but if I make enough to pay for coffee every month, that’s fine.
Why did YOU start the newsletter, what is the REAL reason you’re still doing it?
The hard pill to swallow is, the ‘information’ you’re sharing and trying to monetize, is already available, for free, somewhere else.
Yes, your voice is unique, yes, some people need to hear it your way, but it doesn’t make the information less available… especially to AI.
Yes… AI is coming for your newsletter… though that isn’t why the newsletter is dead.
The reason the newsletter is dead is that we are all drowning in a sea of information.
If I DO need to hear your voice, there is still a cognitive burden between me and you.
The reason the newsletter is dying is that we’re all busy trying to stay ahead of the existential malaise that has us questioning our rights, our income, our health, our brains and our futures.
The newsletter is going to struggle, because the newsletter is trying to provide answers, not make connections. We aren’t looking for answers, we’re looking for relationships that help us manage the struggle.
Think of your newsletter like a social resume
The newsletter is, at best, a place to document your value to the world, and maybe make it easier to connect once we actually arrive at what is coming… a return to the town square.
Rather than teach us how to do social media marketing, or write the perfect note, or tune the perfect title… show us what your process is like when you write.
Write to me like we’re already friends, focus on how we can connect, how we’re similar and why you and I might want to hang out sometime.
Yeah, this is storytelling, maybe it’s just a public diary, but that’s where we, the teeming masses, are at.
To put it bluntly, the social structures are all teetering. After years of social media eroding our self-worth. With the growing abundance of billionaires and corporations are focused on accumulating wealth at the expense of humanity. The thing that most people need now is connection.
So, the newsletter, at least the one that is paying for ads on Instagram and Facebook. The newsletter that’s promising to change my life, is dying.
This ‘business focus newsletter’ will soon be walking around like a zombie, looking to eat your brain, without really doing anything beyond it.
The future of your personal communication platform is finding your people, and connecting with them.
If you’ve read my newsletters before, you know that a huge part of my world is ‘authenticity’ and ‘connection.’ You’ve seen that I’m growing a community for neurodivergents and you have heard my rebellion against the corporate world and ‘shareholder value.’
I’m not always gloomy, but I am always trying to shift perspectives. As a friend once suggested to me…
I’d rather help you light a candle than have you curse the darkness.
That’s the case for me, to you.
I’d love for you to “subscribe to my newsletter” but I’d actually love to chat, with real human voices, even more.
If you’re neurodivergent, self diagnosed, or not… or recognize your brain fires differently than most but hate the label, I’d love for us to connect and talk about our brains, and the world.
This is an invitation, grab a block of time on my calendar and bring whatever topic matters to you.
Something i've been thinking about recently is why we're all so eager to explain the world as we see it. It's almost as if we're overcomplicating this life and making it harder to understand...
We keep creating social media platforms and digital ecosystems where there's a mad-dash to become one of the highly-visibles. "This one's different" we say, promising a new gold rush of thought commerce before it get's diluted again.
But the real irony to me is that the underlying notion seems to be rooted in an arms race of naming or explaining something. Which points to the format you've described here as dying. I think you're right, for what it's worth. And I don't think I'm exempt.
And you nailed it with this:
"The social structures are all teetering. After years of social media eroding our self-worth... at the expense of humanity. The thing that most people need now is connection."