PSA: new site, subscriptions available; also, calling time on VCTB-by-email

A bunch of important stuff below for people who like reading my words, which—given you’re reading my words right now—probably means you.

What’s the TL;DR?

  • I have a new subscription-based website for writing about my futures work; and
  • I will be sunsetting the posts-by-email option here at VCTB some time before the end of 2024, though all content here will remain free to read in perpetuity; as such,
  • if you’ve ever felt my writing was worth paying for, and/or that you wanted to support my work, I would greatly appreciate your taking out a paid subscription at the new site.

It’s not a newsletter…

I have (finally!) gotten my new website, Worldbuilding Agency, up and running; those among you particularly interested in the theory and practice of futuring, and my adventures therein, may wish to subscribe to it.

My current positioning statement is “it’s not a newsletter, it’s a research journal”, which is my way of saying—to myself, as much as to a potential audience—“there will be no hot takes and ranting here”. The idea is to use the new site as a space in which to translate a lot of my academic work into more accessible language for a broader audience, while also developing new lines of research and theory in the field of futuring.

(There’s a more detailed explanation of my plans on the “about” page of Worldbuilding Agency itself.)

Subscription options

You can subscribe to Worldbuilding Agency via RSS, but you’ll need a direct subscription to be able to read any of the more substantive content.

The free subscription tier will get you access to most of what I plan to publish. I’m still not quite sure exactly where I’ll draw the line, but some material will only be accessible to paid subscribers.

The affiliate paid tier is €5 per month (or €50 annually) plus VAT where appropriate. There’s also an associate level paid tier of €50 per month (or €500 annually), which comes bundled with a half day of consulting time: this is intended for high-rollers, and/or the sort of folk who have a budget line for research materials1.

Again, for clarity: a free subscription will allow you to read most of what I publish at Worldbuilding Agency. There will be a newsletter emailed every Sunday, rounding up the week just gone; substantive articles will also be emailed to those whose current tier gives them access. (You should have the option to opt out of any or all of the emails! If not, let me know, and I’ll fix it.)

If you enjoy my writing here (or elsewhere), and/or if you have ever felt you would like to support my work in some tangible way, and if you have the wherewithal to do so, I would like to invite you to take out a paid subscription.

Why send me money?

A paid subscription to Worldbuilding Agency does more than just buy you full access and buy me a beer. A paid subscription also:

  • increases the time I can devote to researching and writing on futures in depth for a general (i.e. non-academic, non-corporate) audience;
  • offers support, both in principle and in practice, for independent futures work that is beholden neither to the bottom line of big firms, nor to the dogma of an academia that’s increasingly afraid of its own shadow;
  • subsidises the publishing of open-access material for those who may not have the funds to pay for it themselves.

It also tells me that my public-facing work is worthwhile, that it is valued, and that I should keep doing it.

(It further means that I don’t have to do this awful cringey sales stuff again, which can only make life better for both of us.)


VCTB email sunset

I also want to alert you to the fact that the posts-by-email option for VCTB will be ending some time before the end of the year. I will signpost the sunsetting clearly and well in advance, but please take this as a heads-up if you are among my email subscribers here.

I’ll spare you the details of why, but the short version would be that the email functionality is not native to WordPress itself, and comes instead via an extension plug-in called Jetpack. Jetpack is owned by the for-profit side of Automattic, and that firm shows every early sign of succumbing to the desperate, extractivist “here’s an AI feature you didn’t ask for, embedded in a service you’ve become dependent on; thanks for the opt-out permission to sell your data to Sam Altman!” business model that passes for “thought leadership” out in the Valley these days.

It’s less a fear of having my content scraped, and more a matter of principle: I’m just sick of these people and their graspy bullshit, and want to detach my own doings from them completely… which means giving up enticements like free mass emails. Selah.

You will always be able to read all of VCTB for free, without any subscriptions or payments. But if you’re currently getting the emails, you’re gonna have to look at getting yourself into RSS.

(RSS is insanely easy, though, and effectively free unless you find yourself following literally hundreds of sites. And even then, it’s a great alternative to the firehose of algo-curated bullshit that is social media. So what are you waiting for?)


OK, that’s the PSA. Please go sub at Worldbuilding Agency, and take a paid option if you’d like to support me.

Thanks for your attention.

  1. This idea shamelessly stolen from Dan Hon; thanks, Dan! ↩︎

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Comments and pingbacks

One response to “PSA: new site, subscriptions available; also, calling time on VCTB-by-email”

  1. […] PSA: new site, subscriptions available; also, calling time on VCTB-by-email: Paul Graham Raven has a new research journal. You can subscribe to it. If can’t pay, you can get for free. Though Paul and I have a long-running debate on the value of hope (he likes it, I don’t) I always enjoy his work, even find his thoughts on hope almost convincing, and think his work is of great value. I recommend paying. I mean, I didn’t. (My banking is a bit of a clusterfuck at the moment, and I’m yet to get my first pay-cheque.) But he does good work. You can see it here. […]

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