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Democratising publishing

by mxstbr on 10/30/24, 2:52 PM with 50 comments

  • by saaaaaam on 10/31/24, 10:36 PM

    I shifted a large 20+ year news publication from Wordpress to ghost about 18 months ago - and opted to use Ghost(Pro)

    It’s been a dream. The core product for that site is a daily newsletter. On ghost it gets higher opens rates and more engagement than via the previous email backend. Build is far simpler too.

    The clincher for me for Ghost(Pro) is that if you use your own hosted version of Ghost you need to plug into something else for sending email newsletters - which for the number of subscribers in this instance for a daily newsletter plus weekly wrap-up would cost a fortune. With Ghost(Pro) it’s all wrapped in. And their support is superb.

  • by djoldman on 11/1/24, 10:34 AM

    For the tax or corp. lawyers:

    Is it possible for some clever business person to start a non-profit, amass a bundle of money, convert to for-profit, and then own the bundle of money to do with as they see fit? If yes, I'd assume there would be tax implications in that the bundle of money would be some ~70% after paying the gov.

  • by nightpool on 10/31/24, 9:15 PM

    I can't really comment too much on historical Wordpress politics—given Matt's recent public meltdown I'm completely willing to believe that he's continued to shoot Wordpress in the foot in more obscure ways in the past—but the posturing here vs. Wordpress really strikes me as someone who has gotten lucky and has attributed that luck to skill instead.

    What happens when Ghost gets popular enough to get their own "G Engine" competing with with Ghost (Pro)? As Wordpress.com shows, there's no serious moat for open source hosting. Either Ghost devotes resources away from their open core and towards their hosting platform, or they lose the competition for marketshare to a company that does devote those resources and then they have no funding stream, aside from what G Engine deigns to give them out of the grace of their own heart. And all of the platitudes about voting or board seats and everything else don't really make one lick of difference if you don't have any funding to make that happen, and you have to rely on pay-to-play funding from the people who are actually making money in the space, and let them set your agenda.

    So, Matt's behavior aside, I do think these issues are pretty endemic to the idea of "open core" funding as a company (or market) grows beyond a certain size. Unified non-profit or dual-corporation structure (Mozilla Corporation vs Mozilla Foundation) doesn't change the fundamental logic of "where does the money come from?". I don't think Ghost is providing any new solutions here—they've just gotten lucky / been small enough to not be out-competed in their hosting niche yet.

  • by apitman on 10/31/24, 8:45 PM

    What strikes me about Ghost's story is that if they hadn't failed to get in to YC[0], they probably would have failed for real, because eventually the VCs would have come calling and they're obviously not a unicorn.

    Instead, they have a successful organization providing a livelihood for almost 50 people, and real value to countless more.

    [0]: https://john.onolan.org/a-decade-after-being-rejected-by-yc/

  • by bastloing on 11/1/24, 1:06 PM

    I just post on X. Get paid for it too!

  • by insane_dreamer on 11/1/24, 5:14 PM

    This is the model that most tech companies who say they are founded on the basis of "helping the world to do X" should adopt. Major Kudos to the Ghost founders for actually following through on their ideals rather than playing lip service to them until the big money flows in, like so many others. And you know, this model is not for everyone and that's fine, but if you're not planning on following through then drop the bullshit idealism from the start and just plainly come out with "we're here to make as much money as possible". (Looking at you, Altman, and many others.)