The Sunday Digest: Join our Discord?

Happy Sunday!

A few months back we switched from Slack to Discord, and it’s been amazing so far. So amazing, in fact, that we’ve decided to invite you to join us. Yes, you! We’ve got rooms for strategy scuttlebutt, productivity prattle, creator economy convos, and much more. (Be on the lookout for podcast recs, dog pics, and food photos.) Also, every Friday at 1pm pacific we have a fun event in our fireside chat “stage room”—Discord’s version of a Clubhouse room.

We’re rolling out invites steadily over the next few weeks to make sure we keep an organic feel to the community and don’t create too much of an instant firehose feeling, but so far there are exactly 99 members, and in our not unbiased opinion it’s an extremely compelling substitute for that extra 30 minutes of daily Twitter usage—you know, long after you’ve hit diminishing returns :)

Want to join?

This week we published 6 articles and 2 podcasts. Here they are!

Cashing in on Clubhouse

by Fadeke Adegbuyi in Cybernaut

Fadeke brings her trademark wit and depth to her first official piece under the freshly-launched Cybernaut. This time, Clubhouse is under the microscope—and Fadeke has a few takes on why the "hustle culture" that pervades the social audio giant runs the risk of turning an exciting new platform into something more formal. With months of Clubhouse experience to draw on, Fadeke spends this article doing what she does best: articulating the quirks of Being Online that we may not have had words for ourselves, but instantly recognize when they're rendered in her intensely readable ones. Make this your weekend read.

Spotify’s Upcoming “Open Access Platform” is as Surprising as it is Awesome

by Nathan Baschez in Divinations

Nathan is back in Divinations with an updated opinion on the surprising announcement that Spotify is complementing its new paywall feature with functionality that will allow creators to link their subscription portals to listeners' Spotify accounts. While Nathan's first read on the developments was that Spotify was following Apple's lead, it's actually much deeper than that, he writes—and more exciting. "Spotify’s goal is to be the icon you tap when you want audio," he says. Read on to find out how they might achieve it.

Gross Margin: An Indicator of Market Power

by Evan Armstrong in Napkin Math

Whether or not Evan is actively vying for the Explainer crown, he might just end up with it anyway. In this installment of the refurbished Napkin Math, he explains how Gross Margin can dictate network power. Spoiler: it has to do with making more by doing less...but how do you do that? It's worth reading Evan to find out what companies do to boost their Gross Margins—not to mention a new round of trademark jokes.

Creating a High Yield “Savings Account” with Crypto & DeFi

by Nat Eliason in Almanack

If you're reading this, it's entirely possible you've bought some (more) Bitcoin in the last year or so. But what happens after you're into crypto? Sure, you can sit and watch your assets appreciate...or you can read Nat on how to build the crypto equivalent of a savings account. And honestly? He makes it sound much cooler than a regular savings account.

Facebook’s Foray into Audio

by Li Jin, Nathan Baschez & Yash Bagal in Means of Creation

In the latest MOC roundup, Li and Nathan discuss Facebook's recently-announced desire to get into the audio game. And while the network's groups seem a natural-ish fit for a Clubhouse-like platform, they're not sold on its long-term appeal. Still, they examine the ways Facebook might still succeed—and, of course, talk about why they're turning to audio in the first place.

Celebrating Cybernaut, with Fadeke Adegbuyi

Talk Therapy with Dan Shipper, Nathan Baschez, and Fadeke Adegbuyi

On the eve of her Clubhouse deep dive, Dan and Nathan welcomed Fadeke to the show this week. After taking them behind the scenes of that latest article and her experiences on Clubhouse, Fadeke also explained what led her to write for Every—and why internet culture can tell us a lot about ourselves.

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What’s Going On

News you might have caught or missed this week.

• What really happened at Basecamp
• Banana Capital’s debut fund is for internet-first founders
• Jeff Wittek’s Patreon Account Gets 37,000 Supporters In 10 Days With Docuseries Rollout
• Mighty Networks Raises $50M to Build the Creator Economy for All
• The Techlash is Coming for Apple

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What We’re Reading

Our favorite writing from beyond Every.

• What Is 'Cheugy'? You Know It When You See It , The New York Times
• Let’s Not Regulate A.I. Out of Existence, OneZero
• The Computers are Getting Better at Writing, The New Yorker

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Tweet of the Week

“Ordering this for myself”—Dan Shipper

writers doing normal shit@writersdoing

The Isolator was a helmet designed in 1925 to help improve writing productivity by blocking noise from your surrounding environment and limiting your vision to what's in front of you.

April 28th 2021, 2:16pm EST

1k Retweets7k Likes

That’s it! Thanks for being a subscriber, see you next week :)