There was a time when you’d get to know about a certain business or organization operating in your neighbourhood only through advertisement leaflets supplied by your friendly neighbourhood newspaper deliverer. You’d have no idea the XYZ Laundromat was right around the corner unless you had a reason to take a look and pay attention. (Of course, word of mouth was, and still is, a means of getting to know new things, but who discusses doing the laundry anyway? Maybe I’m wrong)

These mysterious newsletters were mostly in the form of supplementary leaflets and served advertising purposes, but that was probably because printing those things and getting people to supply to potential customers cost some money - and in business, if you’re spending money, you’d better be doing it to make more money. Capitalism 101.

But what now? We have the internet.

Newsletters are no longer restricted to being pieces of pulp supplied with more pieces of daily pulp, but can now be 1’s and 0’s on screens of varying sizes, catering to audiences of varying ages. The possibility of reaching out a massive number of people has suddenly turned into reality, with no theoretical limit on the number of readers - and it’s gotten mighty cheap too, requiring just an internet connection and a device to type.

What does this mean? People no longer have to spend money on newsletters, and hence they need not use this medium only for advertising. Naturally, businesses make use of newsletters to keep their (potential) customers informed on new, business-relevant developments, but no one stops you from using newsletters for your own stuff. It’s become a form of self-expression too, even though it may not be as popular as mainstream social media platforms. Feel like you have some quality thoughts to share with the world - but aren’t really sure if you’re reaching out to enough people? Not sure if people are reading your blogs? Easy solution. Create a website on some server, create an account on an online newsletter platform like ConvertKit or Substack, and share away!

Once you have a bunch of readers eager to read what you have to say, you have a feedback mechanism through which you can get an understanding of your content’s quality. Thus, it’s a good upward cycle and probably makes you somewhat better at expressing and articulating your ideas through text.

On the flip side, though, given that it’s free to send and even subscribe to online newsletters, it does get a bit annoying to sift through so many emails if you’re “oversubscribed”. Naturally, there is a tool in the making somewhere to address this niche concern too…

But it’s a really nice way to get to know what people have to say, and also to share thoughts and opinions in a directed way with an audience that wants to read those periodically. In fact, I think newsletters (the good ones) are the best way to know what someone’s up to, rather than through social media platforms - when you have a limited audience to be supplied with a limited volume of periodic text - the newsletter ought to have good content, and the creator probably automatically ups their writing game.

Newsletters. Underrated at this point.