Polaris Letter #2: I See Dead People

The May issue of The Polaris Letter is out. For now, it is still free, but I will go to a subscription basis next month. The cost is $12 a month/$120 a year — a level at which it is not too hard to get your money’s worth. There will be an additional level of goodies as well, at $25/$250.

I made a number of inquiries into offering an institutional-class service, a business that I was involved in during 2000-2005. Basically, it seems that it has become much more difficult recently, and is pursued primarily by legacy organizations that have already been involved for a long time. Meanwhile, the opportunities for retail-oriented offerings have expanded dramatically. For one thing, censorship by YouTube and Google AdWords has eliminated the advertising-based model of YouTube/AdWords if you aren’t involved in videos of makeup advice and stupid dog tricks. This drove a lot of people toward a subscription-based model on Patreon or Substack, which in turn got a lot of people accustomed to paying a few bucks a month for things they like.

I am still setting things up. After making a number of inquiries, I decided to go with Substack for basic website functionality. The process of getting a website up and running, ironing out bugs, adding features, and so forth can be more problematic than it looks — especially when you are juggling subscriptions and payments as well. I heard some unfortunate stories of people who spend a lot more time than they would like on these things, rather than doing research and coming up with ideas. Substack offers best-in-class functionality, user experience, and reliability.

Go to Substack to read “I See Dead People.” I used the H-Word — hyperinflation. We cannot be certain of the future, but I think it is time to Go There and at least think about it a bit.

polarisletter.substack.com

I’ve set up a cover website with a bit of an intro. It is at: polarisletter.com.