Subscriptions and Means To Pay For Them

I avoid paying some subscriptions to keep my budget under control - though I do sometimes think some of them could/should/would pay for themselves.

1. Medium

Sometimes I come across a Medium article that is 'members only'. I have some content on Medium myself, and if I produced more and promoted it, maybe I could break even on a membership.

Verdict: Money Out/Money In

2. The Globe And Mail

The premiere national newspaper. I would subscribe to get past their paywall - they say good, responsible journalism costs. The only value it would give me is being an informed citizen and maybe some fodder for my own opinion writing.

Verdict: Money Out

3. Toronto Star

While this is a city paper and I don't even live near Toronto anymore, it still has as many groundbreaking investigative pieces as the Globe & Mail.

Verdict: Money Out

4. Men's Health

I should stop following their X-Twitter - every time they post a link I'm interested in, I hit their paywall. At least the articles would be more personally interesting to me than most current events.

Verdict: Money Out

5. Substack

Writers and journalists (and content creators in general) are turning to this platform either as an alternative to X-Twitter or a means to monetize their content (or both). I haven't looked at much content here but I've considered it as a way to stop doomscrolling X-Twitter and do more meaningful/intentional reading.

If I hosted my own content here, it would probably merely take readership away from my Medium page, so unless I knew it would be more cost-effective, I probably wouldn't go down that road.

Verdict: Money Out

6. Obsidian

I've looked at Obsidian as a PKM platform and maybe a way to have a digital garden. I'm considering it because I think I should move personal work/content away from my employer-owned laptop and put a Linux image on an old laptop I've come across; Obsidian has a Linux-compatible version. It's free until you want to sync across devices or publish on the web.

Verdict: Money Out

7. Paper Website

I've been working in a guided journal (You Already Have The Answers) - the author encourages sharing of some entries. There have been entries that I think show some of my better writing and insights and maybe it would make sense to publish directly into such a website - the platform grabs handwritten pages and does text conversion.

Verdict: Money Out

8. Notion

Unlike Obsidian, this is a platform I have already started using, but I haven't downloaded the desktop version and there is no Linux version. I burned through the free A.I. stuff that was available without realizing there was a limitation. There are also paid templates that appeal.

I'm not sure I could come up with a template that would be popular enough to monetize, nor do I know any other way to monetize content on this platform.

Verdict: Money Out.