Pod Insights Better Offline Building A Newspaper Out of the Internet with Molly White About this episode In this episode, Ed is joined by writer and critic Molly White to talk about how RSS can purify your news experience, the challenge of the newsletter economy, and what gives her optimism for the future.
Citation Needed Newsletter: https://www.citationneeded.news
Molly on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/molly.wiki
Better Offline listener deal: Get $15 Off Where's Your Ed At Premium! Deal goes until the end of August.
https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/better-offline-discount
YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more.
---
LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks
Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/
Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at https://discord.com/invite/QUUQUP9szv
Ed's Socials:
https://twitter.com/edzitron
https://www.instagram.com/edzitron
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript 7,658 words · 10 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. And their Free Empower Personal Dashboard shows you your full financial life in one place. You'll be able to see your net worth, monitor budgets, analyze your portfolio, set retirement goals and more. Whether you're saving for something big, want to treat yourself, friends or family, or meet long-term goals, Empower helps you see where you stand. You've worked hard for your money and Empower can help you make the most of it. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit empower.com. Not an Empower client paid or sponsored.
0:36 Speaker 01 Running a small business takes everything you've got, but with Chase for Business, you're not alone. They bring together local support and a broad range of resources to more than seven million customers. With a deep understanding of your day-to-day needs, they provide products and guidance built to help you thrive. Right now, earn $500 when you open a new Chase Business Complete Checking account for new business checking customers with qualifying activities. Offer expires January 21, 2027. Chase Business Complete Checking has the flexible tools you need to accept payments, make deposits and manage your finances with confidence. Learn more at chase.com/podcastbizoffer. Chase, make
1:18 Speaker 01 more of what's yours. Fees may apply to Chase Business Complete Checking accounts. The $500 offer is available for new business checking accounts with qualifying activities through January 21, 2027. Eligibility and qualification requirements must be met. Additional restrictions may apply. Please speak with a business banker for more information. J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., Member FDIC.
1:51 Ed Zitron? Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm of course your host Ed Zitron as ever.
2:07 Ed Zitron? And today I am joined by the incredible critic and author of the Citation Needed Newsletter, Molly White. Molly, thank you for joining me.
2:13 Speaker 03 Thanks for having me.
2:14 Ed Zitron? So you generally seem to, this is a strange way to put it, actually love the internet. Kind of like, you're mad at what they've done to it, but you actually enjoy the computer quite a lot.
2:24 Speaker 03 Yes, big fan of the computer over here.
2:27 Ed Zitron? You wrote this fantastic thing about RSS, and I think like, a lot of people kind of have the idea it's a feed. Can you walk people through exactly what RSS is and why you like it so much?
2:39 Speaker 03 Yeah, so RSS is just a protocol. It's sort of a system by which websites can make their content available to be ingested by programs called feed readers, which are websites or applications, or, you know, can be an app on your phone, where you can pull together feeds from any number of sources, whether it's the newsletters you follow, the news organizations that you subscribe to, podcasts, YouTube videos, Mastodon feeds, any sort of feed-like structure can be pulled into these feed readers, and then you can read them anytime you want, on your own time,
3:22 Speaker 03 without, you know, going to the Substack app, opening your Mastodon account, you know, going to wired.com. And it's a really wonderful way to interact with the web these days, because it's sort of radically different from how a lot of our online interactions have become this sort of abusive, you know, wrestling match with whatever it is that you're trying to read. You know, the content appears there, there's usually no ads in your RSS feed, there's not any... go ahead.
4:03 Ed Zitron? And is it like, you said you can put Mastodon posts and Blue Sky into it, like you can have your social feeds in there too?
4:09 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah, a ton of different services provide RSS feeds, sometimes without people even realizing it. So, pretty much any WordPress site will publish an RSS feed. Every ghost blog has an RSS feed by default. Substack has RSS on by default. There are other, you know, content management systems where it's either on by default or easily enabled with a click or so.
4:36 Ed Zitron? Right.
4:37 Speaker 03 And the, the real benefit to the person using an RSS reader is that you don't have to rely on the sort of algorithmic feeds that we have become accustomed to where, you know, if you go to Twitter and you just want to see, you know, news articles written by the journalist that you chose to follow there, chances are you're not going to see that. You're going to see Twitter ads. You're going to see rage bait that's being boosted by the algorithm.
5:06 Ed Zitron? Four or five grippers, that kind of thing.
5:08 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah, like Elon Musk's posts always show up even though you don't follow him.
5:12 Ed Zitron? Right.
5:13 Speaker 03 And then the journalists that you did go out of your way to follow, the chances are you're not going to see the news articles they wrote because Twitter down-ranks links.
5:23 Ed Zitron? And that's the same thing with threads as well, I think, but maybe not to the same extent.
5:28 Speaker 03 And Facebook, I mean, a lot of social media websites have started down-ranking links to try to convince people to stay on the platforms rather than going to wherever people actually publish their work.
5:37 Ed Zitron? Right.
5:38 Speaker 03 And it's this horrendous situation for both publishers and readers. And so, you can sort of opt out of it by using RSS to follow these things very directly and avoid a lot of the surveillance and a lot of the, you know, sort of abusive practices that we're increasingly seeing on platforms.
5:58 Ed Zitron? And does, do they still get the traffic? So that was, that's the one thing with RSS that they've really been able to get the, my, the hang of. Cause I know I don't get subscribers. Like, I won't get like reads, which is fine, but does this, does this not like slightly disadvantage publishers? I'm surprised they haven't turned it off.
6:16 Speaker 03 Well, it depends a lot on how a publisher makes their money. So, for example,
6:23 Speaker 03 I write a newsletter. People can pay to subscribe to my newsletter. And it's really no different to me if they read it in their email inbox, if they come to my website, or if they, you know, read it in their RSS reader. You know, it's sort of all the same. And then people who publish paywalled content can opt to have either excerpts of their posts published on their RSS feeds, or increasingly, we're starting to see people create subscriber RSS feeds.
6:56 Ed Zitron? Yeah, I know Patreon does that.
6:58 Speaker 03 Yep. And, you know, I subscribe to 404 Media, and so I have a specific RSS feed that I can follow there that gives me the full text articles. And so, you know, that's a way in which publishers can still earn money through subscriptions while offering RSS feeds. The place where it can be challenging is ad-supported,
7:23 Speaker 03 you know, publishers where they really rely on you visiting the website to get the ad traffic. And so you'll often see ad-supported publishers publishing excerpts from their RSS feeds, but not full text, meaning that if you're following them in a feed reader, you still have to open the page and it takes you to the website and they get the ad traffic. And so that's how a lot of those sites get around it. But there are websites that basically decide that it's, you know, sort of a loss leader. It's like the Costco rotisserie chicken. It gets people in the door. Even if they lose some ad revenue, you know, you're still seeing their material more that you might not otherwise. You're still visiting the site. You might sign up for a subscription, whatever it might be.
8:08 Speaker 03 And so they sort of decide it's a worthwhile trade-off.
8:11 Ed Zitron? And you use Inarita, right?
8:14 Speaker 03 I do, yeah.
8:16 Ed Zitron? And you mentioned, this is a really specific one, but I saw on your piece, you were saying you no longer recommend Feedly. And I've heard Feedly mentioned a few times. Why is that?
8:25 Speaker 03 Yeah, so I used to use Feedly and I used to recommend them pretty widely. You know, they were doing, they had a very nice full feature at RSS reader. And then they sort of started to pivot in ways that were a little bit uncomfortable, where it was very clear that they were targeting, you know, cybersecurity researchers a lot of the time and very like corporate, you know, people. Yeah, it was a very odd like subset of traffic where they were constantly trying to help me like, follow threats online and stuff like that. I was like, what?
8:57 Ed Zitron? Threat intelligence.
8:58 Speaker 03 Yeah. And then, so, but that was fine. You know, I was like, okay, I'm not the demographic for this.
9:03 Ed Zitron? Yeah, they've just changed their business to focus on them.
9:06 Speaker 03 Except that once they, after they did that for a little bit, I started to get promotions about tracking strikes. And it was all about monitoring where there might be strikes happening. And it,
9:22 Speaker 03 they, they, they say that they sort of-
9:24 Ed Zitron? The cops RSS reader.
9:26 Speaker 03 Right. Yeah, exactly. They, they tried to sort of, after I, you know, wrote to them a little bit about this, they tried to sort of play it off as like, bad messaging and that they were really just trying to help people protect their workers.
9:37 Ed Zitron? It's to help people strike.
9:39 Speaker 03 Yeah, it definitely came off as sort of strike breaking as a service. And I decided I was done with Feedly.
9:45 Ed Zitron? Finally.
9:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, right. What we've all been waiting for. But I mean, the, the one thing I really love about RSS is that, you know, it's a protocol. It's not a service that you're locked into. And so it's actually very easy to switch RSS readers if, one of them decides that it's going to start surveilling strikes.
10:05 Ed Zitron? That's actually a good question. How does, how do you, so if you sit, and I really, I'll be linking to this piece conspicuously, your excellent RSS piece. But how do you move was actually one of my questions.
10:17 Speaker 03 It's incredibly easy. Pretty much every RSS reader allows you to export all of the RSS feeds that you follow. And it's just a simple XML file. It's the same thing that I use to publish my blog roll on my website. So if you're curious, like what blogs I read, I just export, those- You know, folders into a, an O P M L file is what it's called. And then I put it on my website. Um, but the same-
10:43 Ed Zitron? And you just, you just open that file in-
10:45 Speaker 03 Yep.
10:45 Ed Zitron? What in a reader or what have you?
10:46 Speaker 03 Right. And it took me probably 10 seconds to switch from Feedly to, to my new-
10:50 Ed Zitron? Very nice.
10:51 Speaker 03 Yeah.
10:52 Ed Zitron? Wow. There is, there's some stuff in the internet that works still. It's magic.
11:05 Speaker 00 Empower is all about helping you invest well, so you can go out and live a little. And their free Empower Personal Dashboard shows you your full financial life in one place. You'll be able to see your net worth, monitor budgets, analyze your portfolio, set retirement goals and more. Whether you're saving for something big, want to treat yourself, friends or family, or meet long-term goals, Empower helps you see where you stand. You've worked hard for your money and Empower can help you make the most of it. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit empower.com. Not an Empower client, paid or sponsored.
11:37 Speaker 04 Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
12:07 Speaker 05 Snoring, gasping for air during sleep, daytime sleepiness? I'm Shaquille O'Neal and this shouldn't be anybody's experience. Ask your doctor about Zepbound Trisepotide, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity.
12:23 Speaker 06 Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, O S A, and obesity to improve their O S A. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15-milligram injection. Zepbound contains Trisepotide and should not be used with other Trisepotide-containing products or any- GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it. Or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type two. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain
13:07 Speaker 06 or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems.
13:30 Speaker 05 Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbound.lily.com.
13:40 Ed Zitron? And having you on here to talk about RSS was important because, first of all, people say I complain all the time, and they are right. And it's just, it's nice to see that there are still some functional parts of the internet. Is there, are there other parts that you actually, like other things like, I don't know, RSS that you use regularly that could make other, make the worlds, make our listeners' internet worlds a little bit better?
14:04 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, I think it's all part of a theme of sort of avoiding these intermediaries that have these incredibly extractive relationships with both the users and, you know, and often publishers who are on, you know, the other side of that relationship. And so I do everything I can to sort of avoid those intermediaries where possible. And so, you know, for example, I write a newsletter. I use the Ghost newsletter software where, you know, the relationship that I have with the people who subscribe to me is very direct. You know, people are subscribing to Molly White, the writer. They're not subscribing to Ghost, the website, that then, you know, Dan's to give me a cut
14:48 Speaker 03 of whatever they're taking in, which is unlike some of the other services out there. For example, Patreon, where...
14:58 Speaker 03 You know, if you set up a Patreon account, everyone is actually in a financial relationship with Patreon, not with you. And so if you decide to leave, it can be incredibly challenging to move people to another service. Whereas with Ghost, if I want to leave, I can just set up somewhere else. I can export my subscribers. The financial relationships are already just directly with me. And so that's a very powerful thing, the sort of escape hatch, where now if Ghost decides, you know, hey, maybe we're gonna, I don't know, slap ads on everyone's newsletter without them agreeing to it. They now have this incentive on the other end,
15:38 Speaker 03 which is like, well, Molly and all the other people who publish with Ghost might not like that, and they might just leave because they can. Whereas other services that have more of a locked in relationship can make those decisions and take the gamble that, well, it's so hard to leave, that people are probably just gonna put up with it. And so that's, that's one place where I do that. And, you know, there are sort of other, other services throughout the web that, you know, are sort of similar, where I try to keep the intermediaries to a bare minimum.
16:16 Ed Zitron? Yeah, I use Ghost myself, and I use Outpost from, they're very good. It's basically, it's one of the things I actually like about Ghost is that you can build a company on top of it, and the company is just, hey, we'll provide some of those slick little features that you get from a Substack or what have you, like following up with people if their credit cards expired or what have you. But it's, and it's also for giant babies like me who can't do code. I didn't vibe coded, I swear. Yeah, but thinking of Substack, I've never seen a company go quite as weirdly as them. Putting aside all the obvious promotions of Nazis, it feels as if Substack has just turned into another dogshit social network.
16:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, Substack is a weird platform because they do in some ways have that similar ethos of, you know, your subscribers are subscribing to you, not to Substack. And so it's easy to leave to some extent, where, you know, I, I used to be on Substack. I decided to leave. I exported all of my email contacts. You know, I moved all of my content to a different website and it went fairly smoothly. And that's always been a part of Substack's marketing is, you know, this is a very direct relationship. You'll be able to leave if you want. But I'm getting the impression
17:34 Speaker 03 increasingly that they're almost regretting that decision and that they are trying to install ways that lock people into the platform without effectively locking people in by trying to cut off their, you know, escape hatch, essentially, you know, they, they could say, sorry, you can't export your email lists anymore, or we're going to make it really challenging for you to get, you know, move your content off the platform. And they haven't directly done that, but they are-
18:04 Ed Zitron? Well, they've got this following thing now.
18:07 Speaker 03 Well, that's, that's what I was gonna say is they are sort of trying to add in these new, you know, so-called features that make it very challenging for people to leave. So there's now followers, which are different from subscribers. And the idea is that, you know, if you attract followers, they may eventually convert into a subscriber, and that's very potentially valuable. But you can't take your, your followers with you. They have this sort of network and this almost like short form social media platform now where you publish these notes and, you know, those don't come with you when you leave. They are increasingly-
18:45 Ed Zitron? They do video now as well.
18:46 Speaker 03 Yeah, they're increasingly encouraging people to use the Substack app, you know, which is the idea then is that if you leave Substack, all of these people who've gotten used to reading on the Substack app will no longer find you and they won't, you know, get access to your writing because you're not there anymore. And so, you know, we see this sort of constant gravitational pull of insinuation, to use Cory Doctorow's word,
19:14 Speaker 03 where, you know, platforms increasingly are trying to keep people locked in so that they can then extract more value, both from the publisher end and from the consumer end, while making the experience worse for both.
19:29 Ed Zitron? Hmm. Yeah. And you're kind of seeing, and you've mentioned this in your article as well, publishers are moving towards the newsletter format as well. It's like 2021 again. I don't know if you, do you remember in 2021 when you had like The Atlantic? And there was that weird side channel thing, like all these people were like, oh, we're going to build a community, just gave up on that.
19:46 Speaker 03 Right.
19:47 Ed Zitron? But it's, you're seeing everyone starting newsletters again. It's just, you made the point as well, it's at this point, it's just moving stuff into your inbox in a way that people probably don't necessarily want, or they're at least find a little overwhelming.
20:00 Speaker 03 Yeah. So that is sort of the downside of this newsletter boom, which is that it's exhausting if you read a lot of newsletters, which I do, you know, to get, you know, if you follow 10 newsletter writers who are publishing maybe once a week, twice a week, something like that, then constantly throughout your work day or your weekend, you're getting, you know, a notification in your inbox at sort of a random time that you need to read this email, which maybe you're in the middle of something and it's not time, you know, not a good time for you to read. And so it's just sort of constantly lurking there, waiting for you to read it. It's, you know, potentially edging out other more time critical emails that you need to pay attention to.
20:41 Speaker 03 And it's just sort of this, you know, deluge of material, whereas it used to be that, you know, you would go to. The websites that you follow or, you know, open the physical newsletter that or newspaper that you receive in your mail and, you know, you could sit down and read the news with your morning coffee.
20:58 Ed Zitron? Yeah.
20:59 Speaker 03 And now it's sort of a different, you know, it's more of a push relationship than a poll relationship. You're not going to read, you are being sort of inundated with the reading. And so RSS is a really nice way, in my opinion, to handle that as a reader because now, you know, if I subscribe to your newsletter, I can, you know, turn off the email notifications, but put the RSS feed in my feed reader. And then at my leisure, when I feel like reading my newsletters or going and catching up on the news or whatever it is that I'm reading, I can go do that and it's all in that one place and my email inbox is, you know, safe to have just emails and all of
21:42 Speaker 03 the the stuff that's more suited to that.
21:45 Ed Zitron? It is funny, we kind of feel like everyone has built these obtuse and complex ways of delivering the news or selling the news or getting people news in different forms. And for the most part, the thing that keeps working is the thing from what 20, 30 years ago, just like reading words on a page. It's, it's funny as well because looking at this move back to newsletters, like I hate to give an Eli Patel any credit at all, but Google Zero is a real effect, I think. I don't know if it's going to zero, but it's, it's, I'm still getting a ton from my newsletter. But it is funny to watch people try and get back to newsletters, but it almost feels like they're just treating them as the same thing as a regular article rather than a
22:28 Ed Zitron? unique way of delivering news, which I guess it is. But I feel like that the email format is not treated with any, any necessary particular respect. It's just almost become a dumping ground for these companies. Like, it's just like, hey, I think I, with Washington Post, let's see if I still get them, because I got really pissed off. There was a point when I was getting four or five emails a day from the most work I got. And it's just, it's abuse on your inbox in the same way it abuses your feed and so on and so forth.
22:54 Speaker 03 Right. I think that's really true is that especially high volume publishers really need to grapple with the strategy when it comes to these types of relationships with subscribers because you know, it's one thing to publish 20 articles a day on, you know, washingtonpost.com. That's not, you know, that's not a problem for anybody. In fact, people probably enjoy all of that choice. But getting 20 separate emails is not a viable way to have, you know, a respectful relationship with the people who have chosen to subscribe. And so I think that, you know, it is incredibly important to consider that as, you know, if you're a publication that's thinking about creating a newsletter is like, what do people actually have the appetite to read?
23:39 Speaker 03 And how can we maintain, you know, a respectful relationship with these people who have, you know, chosen to, to receive this material?
23:48 Ed Zitron? And my answer is 10,000 words. Just send them 10,000 words every week or so. No one ever emails me to say my stuff is too long. No one has ever complained about it. It's great.
24:09 Speaker 00 Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. And their Free Empower Personal Dashboard shows you your full financial life in one place. You'll be able to see your net worth, monitor budgets, analyze your portfolio, set retirement goals and more. Whether you're saving for something big, want to treat yourself, friends or family, or meet long-term goals, Empower helps you see where you stand. You've worked hard for your money and Empower can help you make the most of it. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit empower.com. Not an Empower client paid or sponsored.
24:41 Speaker 07 OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
25:09 Speaker 05 Snoring, gasping for air during sleep, daytime sleepiness? I'm Shaquille O'Neal and this shouldn't be anybody's experience. Ask your doctor about Zepbound Trzepatide, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity.
25:25 Speaker 06 Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15-milligram injection. Zepbound contains Trzepatide and should not be used with other Trzepatide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction.
26:10 Speaker 06 Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia, if you're nursing, pregnant, plant-to-be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulphonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems.
26:32 Speaker 05 Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979, or visit zepbound.lily.com.
26:43 Ed Zitron? It's kind of depressing on some level, though, because the way it's going, I don't know how these large publishers can eat... Like, it's like they don't understand any particular format. They're just... They're doing newsletters, not trying to back on the verge too much, but... I don't know. Suddenly them doing newsletters a lot in the last year doesn't feel like it's specific to... It doesn't feel like it's a specific format. It's just like, "Please give us your emails so that we can continue to email you", which is desperate.
27:12 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, I think there is sort of reasonable desperation among-
27:15 Ed Zitron? Oh, yeah, I must be clear, like, I totally understand why they're there.
27:18 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of publishers have realized that relying on intermediaries, whether it's social media platforms like Twitter to get your news in front of people, or, you know, Google Search was, used to be a massive way that, you know, news publications received readership. And now, you know, as people are increasingly using the excerpts on Google, they're not clicking through to the page.
27:45 Ed Zitron? And when you say excerpts, you mean the AI summaries?
27:48 Speaker 03 It depends.
27:49 Ed Zitron? Or just the pop-up?
27:50 Speaker 03 It used to be that Google News would just show like a literal excerpt from, you know, the top results, and then people would often not visit the underlying website. Or, you know, you see the like Wikipedia knowledge panels that just sort of summarize what you're looking for. But now, yeah, more recently, there's the AI overviews that, you know, attempt to do sort of a similar thing, but often drawing from multiple sources. And then, you know, if people are satisfied with what they see there, they often don't click through. They don't either see the ads that are funding the website, or they don't, you know, see the invitations to subscribe. They don't, you know, view all the other material
28:34 Speaker 03 that might be available to them and so on. And so the traffic is dwindling at a sort of alarming rate. And so I think a lot of these publishers are trying to get more direct relationships with readers, and email newsletters are a way that they're doing that.
28:50 Ed Zitron? Yeah.
28:51 Speaker 03 Which I think is very reasonable. I mean, I think that it is, you know, incredibly important as a writer to have a very direct relationship with your readers, because if you are relying on Twitter or Google Search, then the second Twitter or Google Search decides it's more profitable for them to twiddle the knobs in a way that is going to cut off the, you know, flow of subscribers to you, they're going to do so, and you're going to be up a creek, essentially. But I do think that, you know, there needs to be some thought put into this, especially by high-volume publications, so that they are not essentially, you know-
29:35 Speaker 03 Directing a fire hose at their readers and essentially turning them off from the publication.
29:41 Ed Zitron? I think it's also a challenge for a publication versus a person because we were talking about this on the last episode, how it's people will gladly pay for a person, paying for an outlet, that's different. I also think the other problem is, and I'm not, just to be clear, I know I'm back on the verge, this isn't about them specifically, but it's the problem that I've seen with legacy media at least is they're terrified of giving a voice to their people. They'll give it to their top columnists, but they think, oh no, if we let people develop a personal relationship with the writer, then they could leave and have some sort of autonomy over their future, which is not why we're in this business. But now it's going back the other way where they realize, oh crap, that's the only way in which people will have any kind of sticky relationship with us.
30:23 Speaker 03 Right.
30:24 Ed Zitron? After winning the Fell For It Again Award 11 times in the space of 15 years with Google and everyone else. Even Substack, I am actually like, I loved Substack at the beginning because it was free, it was really easy to use. It was just a platform. Hamish would go out and do these things about this is the future of media and media is good. And we love being free here. But I think that just it was everything, it was exactly what happens every time. It's, oh, right, we need to make more money than we spend.
30:53 Speaker 03 Yeah.
30:54 Ed Zitron? How do we do that? Hmm. And it's just, it's an inevitable point because it's almost, I, I have the, here is my, my media theory. I think media outlets are just too big. I think if they need to cap out at some point, because all of the problems we talk about, every single one seems to start when they get too large, if for a company or a media outlet, they get too large to have any personality, or they get to the point where they're too large to have an editor who actually still writes and has a personality themselves. So it's like, ah, we can't give people too much freedom or anything. It's disappointing as well because you've kind of proven this exceedingly well with your many successes, where it's like, people will pay for someone who is themselves, stands for something, gives a share.
31:40 Speaker 03 Right.
31:40 Ed Zitron? And yet, they also don't want to copy that.
31:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think you're totally right on that, where, you know, newspapers are sort of afraid of letting writers develop their own personalities, as you say. I mean, you see this with large newspapers, you know, restricting their writers on social media, for example, where if they say something too opinionated on social media, that's, you know, against the social media policy. And, and, you know, I think that is very contrary to what people are looking for. They want to see people who have strong opinions and strong beliefs and strong principles and stand up for those things. And so I do think that, you know, that's a shortcoming. But I also agree that newspapers, some, some publications seem to be realizing that that
32:25 Speaker 03 sort of direct relationship with a writer is a valuable thing. You know, I mentioned in my piece that Wired was also one of the outlets that has recently announced a major newsletter push.
32:36 Ed Zitron? Yes.
32:36 Speaker 03 And their strategy has been, you know, here's five or 10 options for different newsletters that you can read. And they're written by specific people at Wired who are, you know, seen to be experts in a specific area. So you can follow, you know, the Kylie Robison Wired newsletter. And I was like-
32:56 Ed Zitron? Miss Robinson's model behavior. I'll put a link in there. Follow Kylie.
33:01 Speaker 03 Right. And I saw that and I was like, oh, hell yeah, sign me up because I know that her work is incredible. And I'm going to read it when it shows up in my newsletter or in my, my feed reader. Whereas, you know, I don't read every single article that Wired publishes because that's just not feasible.
33:17 Ed Zitron? Yeah.
33:17 Speaker 03 And so I think that, you know, publications would be wise to do more of that and to sort of understand that people do look at bylines. They do have specific authors who they trust or who's writing they enjoy more or whatever it may be, rather than going for the sort of- Faceless, you know, we're just the Washington Post or we're just the New York Times and the author doesn't really matter.
33:43 Ed Zitron? It's classic. It's honestly, it's MBA brain. It's core pro brain where it's like, well, how do we, how do, do you think that a person like thinks, oh, I love my relationship with the New York Times? But that's how they're thinking about it. Like, what is a consumer's relationship with the newspaper? There is no relationship with the newspaper. There might be a vibe, but there is not a relationship. I think the Financial Times has actually found, though not in the newsletter era, they found a very good balance between hard news and excellent, like they got Price Elder, Skaggs as well as over at Barron's now. But you've got Alpha Ville, they found a way to unleash it and the FT has done very well.
34:22 Ed Zitron? It's just, I don't know, there's some part that feels like this is the comeuppance for 15, 20 years of hubris of follow Google, follow Meta, follow whoever will send us traffic. Build cars, build as big as possible on this.
34:37 Speaker 03 Yeah. And also the sort of view from nowhere news approach where, you know, it's the belief was that there shouldn't be any sort of opinion. There shouldn't be any sort of, uh, you know, principled analysis. It should all just be, you know, both sides is um, and this supposedly objective reporting. Which does strip out a lot of the personality of the, the writer and it removes a lot of the, you know, reason that people uh, identify with or, or appreciate specific writers. And so I think that this was to some extent sort of a, a crisis of their own doing in that sense as well.
35:18 Ed Zitron? I also think that, I also think that the raw economics of media might be completely fucked on some level. I think that there's just, you see, and I think it's because of the Google traffic and the social traffic as well. You've got these massive ad staffs. You've got these massive social staffs. Every, and it doesn't seem to necessarily connect to anything. It doesn't, I don't know if it like drives results or not. I truly don't know, but it's the way that every single media outlet at some point in the last few years has act like it's been, acted like it's been pecked to death by birds. Just acted like The Verge added their paywall. And I get it, by the way, things cost money, but it's, it almost feels as if.
36:00 Ed Zitron? These castles have been built for a land that no longer exists anymore.
36:04 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, I think that the news landscape is incredibly challenging right now for a number of reasons. You know, there's the traffic issues, there's the AI scraping issues that are, you know, causing a lot of news outlets to put up paywalls that are then, you know, blocking people who previously, like real people, not scrapers, who might previously have, you know, visited their sites and enjoyed their work. And, you know, now you see this double edged sword, whereas people paywall news media, you know, they they might block scrapers to some extent, but they're also blocking people from reading the material that might then incentivize them to subscribe.
36:47 Speaker 03 You know, if every article is paywalled, there is no way to know if you're going to like what's behind the paywall, right?
36:55 Speaker 03 And so I think that, you know, this is sort of an incredibly challenging moment for a lot of news organizations that are really struggling to figure out how to deal with it.
37:06 Speaker 03 You know, how to maintain a sustainable news business. When you're facing those types of threats, you're also facing political threats increasingly, especially in the United States, for publishing any sort of controversial material about the administration. Or, you know, there's, you're seeing an incredible unwillingness by a lot of major publications to have strong opinions or to say anything that is, you know, not supported by 10 separate sources, you know, any kind of speculation, that type of thing, because of the legal environment that we're in.
37:47 Speaker 03 And so, you know, I have some sympathy, I think, for a lot of these publications that are trying to navigate it. But I also think that the ways in which they have been navigating it have often been pretty misguided.
38:00 Ed Zitron? So to wrap us up, is there anything giving you the, any hope online right now? Anything that like genuinely is like thinking things can be okay, even in a different form?
38:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, I would say so. I do think that there, you know, one thing that has been made very clear to me is that people still care a lot about good writing and people who have, you know, new or interesting analysis. You know, a lot of people sort of look at the way that I do my newsletter, which is, you know, everything is free. There's no pay wall. You don't have to even sign up, much less subscribe. And I have a pay what you want model. So you could pay, you know, a dollar a month, you could pay $10 a month, whatever you want. And people look at that and they're like, that can't work, you know, like, no one's gonna do that.
38:52 Ed Zitron? And it has worked, right?
38:53 Speaker 03 It works great. Yeah, it works great. And, you know, people sort of have this belief that, well, if something's free, no one's ever gonna pay for it, which isn't true. I think that people actually strongly value the work that people are doing, even if they're not forced to pay for it. And they understand that people need support to be able to continue to do their work, and they will gladly provide that. And so I do think that, you know, there are models available that will work very well that we can try. And different people are trying those models. You know, we're seeing it widely throughout the media landscape, where people are just trying new things, whether it's, you know, the 404 medias and
39:37 Speaker 03 the defectors and those folks who are doing, you know, worker-owned media collectives that are doing incredible work. I mean, 404 is, you know, trailblazing, I think, in a lot of ways. Their reporting is incredible and their, you know, their sort of model is incredible. You know, we're seeing people very proactively setting up ways in which they can create sustainable media that does not rely on ads, that does not require paywalls, that does not, you know, rely on clickbait through social media websites. And so I am very optimistic in some ways, even though the, the sort of landscape is also fairly terrifying.
40:23 Ed Zitron? And on that, on that note, we'll end it there. Molly, where can people find you?
40:27 Speaker 03 So you can find my newsletter at citationneeded.news and then I am also at mollywhite.net, which has links to all of my social media and everything else.
40:35 Ed Zitron? And you can find me on this podcast, betteroffline.com as well. And yeah, you can catch us on the monologue this week. Molly, thank you so much for joining us and this has been Better Offline.
40:53 Ed Zitron? Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at mattosowski.com. M A T T O S O W S K I dot com. You can email me at [email protected] or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat dot wheresyoured dot at to visit the Discord and go to r slash betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening.
41:26 Speaker 08 Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
41:59 Speaker 00 Empower is all about helping you invest well, so you can go out and live a little. And their Free Empower Personal Dashboard shows you your full financial life in one place. You'll be able to see your net worth, monitor budgets, analyze your portfolio, set retirement goals, and more. Whether you're saving for something big, want to treat yourself, friends, or family, or meet long-term goals, Empower helps you see where you stand. You've worked hard for your money and Empower can help you make the most of it. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit empower.com. Not an Empower client paid or sponsored.
42:30 Speaker 09 Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound Terzepatide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems, to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15-milligram injection. Zepbound contains Terzepatide and should not be used with other Terzepatide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles.
43:12 Speaker 09 Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia, if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulphonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor.
43:53 Speaker 09 Call 1-800-545-5979, or visit zepbound.lily.com.
44:00 Speaker 07 OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star Trust Pilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
44:28 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Previous Monologue: Annualized Revenues Are BS Next Monologue: The Anker Nebula X1 Is The Best Projector I've Ever Used Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
