Eight Reasons Autowriting Is Dead And Subscriptions Won't Save It
Paid subscribers only, because I enjoy irony
A few of you, and a few other industry pals, have sent me Matt Hardigree’s announcement that “The Autopian” has reached the thousand-subscriber mark. It’s my understanding that although there are several subscription levels, including the newly-introduced “Cloth”, the vast majority of subscriptions are the “Vinyl” level and that the average subscription amount is $113 a year. That’s $113k a year! Pretty good. It’s better than the total amount I get from Substack, that’s for sure.
Let’s put it in context, however; I worked with people at the insurance company who now have other jobs away from the insurance company, and their assistants earn more than $113k a year. (Their assistants also earn more than I do in my primary field at the age of 51, but I’ll save further pithy observations on that matter for my upcoming suicide note, which will be in blank-verse format and will probably have more than one, but fewer than four, Steely Dan quotes.) The Autopian has several full-timers and a tech infrastructure that probably costs real money to operate — at least half of the incoming amount, possibly more.
So while I’m happy for Hardigree, his crew, and all the work they’ve done, this news has forced me to ponder some hard truths about autowriting. In the words of the old pre-social-media meme: You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict autowriting’s future. The hand writing is on the wall: autowriting faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for autowriting because autowriting is dying. Things are looking very bad for autowriting. As many of us are already aware, autowriting continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Here, as they would say on Buzzfeed, are the top eight reasons, ranging from the obvious to the subtle.