Great read! What do you think is the right strategy for MOOCs? Should they treat their immensely popular free courses as loss leaders and then promote their paid courses?
There should be eventually some differential treatment of content and revenue sharing -- which opens up platforms to all kinds of ethical problems (of neutrality). This is why I am underwhelmed by Notes feature, moves away from new readership to cross readership, and from long tail to pareto.
In the yglesias case, clearly I see it was a case of "Contracting to assure supply" paper: eliminating downside risk for the writer (while making sure to generate articles), which was desperately needed for content on the platform. Aesthetically, I have loved reading his post-vox writings that pack in free-form liberated riffs and droll humor, so I think it has been net plus for readership welfare.
Excellent point about Notes moving away from Substack's core strengths (long-tail of niche content). Interesting that the "Pareto improvement" hasn't worked so far.
It's a curiosity, no? Absolutely commerce by sea has something to do with it. I suppose early bilateral trade promoted exchange of ideas allowing for time for social/religious ideas to take to organically grow within. Bengal was trading with China going back to Ming dynasty and uninterrupted through the years. (Sea-faring trade can't explain the massive difference between coastal karnataka/TN and Kerala though).
Great read! What do you think is the right strategy for MOOCs? Should they treat their immensely popular free courses as loss leaders and then promote their paid courses?
Another interesting example of revenue sharing is substack which initially paid superstar writers like Matt Yglesias to grow the demand side: https://www.vox.com/recode/22338802/substack-pro-newsletter-controversy-jude-doyle
Good question. I dont know. Thinking online here.
There should be eventually some differential treatment of content and revenue sharing -- which opens up platforms to all kinds of ethical problems (of neutrality). This is why I am underwhelmed by Notes feature, moves away from new readership to cross readership, and from long tail to pareto.
In the yglesias case, clearly I see it was a case of "Contracting to assure supply" paper: eliminating downside risk for the writer (while making sure to generate articles), which was desperately needed for content on the platform. Aesthetically, I have loved reading his post-vox writings that pack in free-form liberated riffs and droll humor, so I think it has been net plus for readership welfare.
Excellent point about Notes moving away from Substack's core strengths (long-tail of niche content). Interesting that the "Pareto improvement" hasn't worked so far.
One thing I've often wondered about how communism, football, and fish connect the two, otherwise quite different, states of Kerala and West Bengal
It's a curiosity, no? Absolutely commerce by sea has something to do with it. I suppose early bilateral trade promoted exchange of ideas allowing for time for social/religious ideas to take to organically grow within. Bengal was trading with China going back to Ming dynasty and uninterrupted through the years. (Sea-faring trade can't explain the massive difference between coastal karnataka/TN and Kerala though).