While I am a big fan of newsletters, they do have one downside in the way I use my email. My in-box tends to be as much a “to-do” list as anything else for me. Yes, I’m aware this isn’t great practice, but it’s the way I am. But that creates a problem. Thread!

When I’m in my in-box, I’m in task-focused mode. Long, interesting emails are a distraction from that. That’s why some newsletters get consumed quickly every day — @mediavoicespod’s one and @MartinSFP’s Big Revolution, for instance — others get booted into a “to read” folder.

This is where, in the medium term, things that @SubstackInc’s own reader and apps like @stoopinbox have value. They’re a good place to go when you’re in “reading” mode, rather than “doing” mode.

But, in the case of the more long, discursive emails, I increasing kinda wish they were, well, blogs that I can consume in my RSS reader. As the newsletter boom grows, the same problems that arose with blogs will hit, and this, I think, is one of them.

But lurking in the background of all of this is one question: do all these newsletters *really* need to be this long? Are you *really* focused on reader value — or are you being self-indulgent?

This really should have been a blog post, shouldn’t it?