> No. Like I said above, Stratechery is a business, and it’s the quality of my audience that makes this deal possible. Moreover, Stratechery has never promised to be ad-free: what I am selling is access to my paid content, and it’s on me to make that content worthwhile.
This is disappointing. As a long-time Stratechery subscriber, and someone who cares a little too much about where my time and attention is spent, I go out of my way to pay for the ad-free tier for almost all the content I regularly consume.
After years of reading Ben’s arguments in favor of advertising, I was finally starting to come around to his point of view. This announcement, though, leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
I think Ben’s own distinction between lean-in and lean-back engagement is particularly relevant here. When I’m mindlessly scrolling Instagram, an ad for an interesting product is just as welcome a diversion as the wedding photos of some long-forgotten acquaintance. But when I’m reading Stratechery, I’m deliberately giving a subject my attention, hoping to come away with some new insight. An ad for Stripe in the middle of that experience serves as a distraction and decreases value rather than increasing it.
And, in the spirit of Ben’s own disclosures, I should mention that I recently joined a company that competes with Stripe. Make of that what you will.
Anyone else bothered by the author’s constant return to whining about how Framework did not do enough for this specific repair? Each time I found myself thinking “ok, rant over, now on to the interesting technical bits” only for the rant to resume a few paragraphs later.
No. I feel it's at least 50% of the story because FW themselves make so much hay about it. They aren't just failing at something, they are failing at the single differentiator that they charge more money for. their one and only selling point and value proposition.
It deserves to be laid out and reiterated, and it's the author's choice what they want to talk about, and they want to talk about FW as much as the technical incidentia.
If you just want to learn how to flash an isp chip, there are surely countless sources.
> No. Like I said above, Stratechery is a business, and it’s the quality of my audience that makes this deal possible. Moreover, Stratechery has never promised to be ad-free: what I am selling is access to my paid content, and it’s on me to make that content worthwhile.
This is disappointing. As a long-time Stratechery subscriber, and someone who cares a little too much about where my time and attention is spent, I go out of my way to pay for the ad-free tier for almost all the content I regularly consume.
After years of reading Ben’s arguments in favor of advertising, I was finally starting to come around to his point of view. This announcement, though, leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
I think Ben’s own distinction between lean-in and lean-back engagement is particularly relevant here. When I’m mindlessly scrolling Instagram, an ad for an interesting product is just as welcome a diversion as the wedding photos of some long-forgotten acquaintance. But when I’m reading Stratechery, I’m deliberately giving a subject my attention, hoping to come away with some new insight. An ad for Stripe in the middle of that experience serves as a distraction and decreases value rather than increasing it.
And, in the spirit of Ben’s own disclosures, I should mention that I recently joined a company that competes with Stripe. Make of that what you will.
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