The brief history of people writing things to other people

Newsletters peaked in ~1530, the Medicis invented Substack and we are running a sale for a week before starting experiments with the paywall.

While independent journalism is often seen as a subversive activity by those in power, the reality of it, especially on funding, is rarely revolutionary.

Probably the most meaningful structural "innovation" of the last two decades was the introduction of digital paywalls. I remember the first conversations I had about this in the early 2010s, and it felt like pure sci-fi. People from Slovakia (Piano was a Slovak company back then) came to the Budapest Ringier office to tell us about audiences actually paying for content. Sitting in that conference room truly felt like ascending to the top level of the expanding brain meme, mind: blown. And somehow forgetting that 10 years before that, we all worked in print where people paying for content was the norm, actually for centuries.

This is not to say digital audience revenues are trivial or that no innovation happens, but I think there are a lot of changes that are presented as groundbreaking, when in reality they're more cyclical, or like a pendulum swinging back and forth.

So in this spirit (and after some careful needs-analysis) I want to present you with what our sector so desperately needs in these tumultuous times: a newsletter about the history of newsletters.

This isn't entirely a self-indulgent tour of media history (though I won't pretend there isn't some personal fascination driving this). Understanding these cyclical patterns matters because they help us anticipate what's coming next. When we recognize that many "innovations" are actually reincarnations of older models adapted to new technologies, we can make smarter decisions about product development and monetization. History doesn't repeat itself exactly, but it rhymes enough that we'd be silly to ignore its lessons.

Before we get into newsletters past and present, I'm thrilled to report some more good news on the EU funding front (though I promise not to get too deep into funding EU mechanisms for at least another week). After the BUDG committee two weeks ago, yesterday the whole European Parliament voted for their MFF resolution, and journalism is explicitly included as a priority. This is a significant win for our sector after extensive advocacy efforts. We wrote in detail about how this resolution came about and why it matters in our March-April editions (most recently and comprehensively here), but the short version is: this inclusion gives us stronger footing for the coming budget negotiations that will shape media funding for years to come.

Also, we are going to start experimenting with this newsletter in the coming weeks and months, I’ll explain toward the end what we have in mind.

But for now, let's dive into the brief history of people writing things to other people…

Put your hands up for early commercialised information

There was a growing group of people in renaissance Italy, who wanted information about their immediate environment and the wider world beyond what state or religious authorities were willing to provide. Princes and other aristocrats, clergymen, and wealthy merchants were increasingly curious about their world, not at least because knowledge about current affairs enabled them to make better decisions for themselves and/or their circles. Better information offered opportunities in business, diplomacy, politics, even social status.

Around the same time, in the mid-16th century, literacy was beginning to spread slowly in Europe, and trade routes and early postal infrastructure also expanded, so correspondence could be transported and there were more people who could actually read it.

This was the era of the handwritten Italian newsletters, known as "avvisi", one of the earliest forms of commercialised information. These were essentially subscription-based bulletins, compiling intelligence from diplomatic dispatches, merchants’ letters, travelers’ accounts, and other sources. Cities like Rome and Venice became early hubs for news, sending out dispatches on political events, wars, papal affairs, the health of nobles, and a fair bit of gossip. Many authors were themselves courtiers or secretaries serving powerful patrons. Their news writing was an extension of diplomatic correspondence, though aimed at a semi-public readership.

These early bulletins did expand the flow of information and, to some extent, weakened the ability of any single authority to monopolize news. Still, because of their cost and reliance on literacy, avvisi were far from democratic, they remained elite products, created by elites for elites.

Though the printing press already existed, it was primarily used for books. It would take another 80 years or so before printed newsletters or newspapers began appearing. This shift reduced production and distribution costs and slowly broadened the readership. As circulation grew, advertising emerged as a revenue stream, and over time we arrived at a structure that closely resembled the media landscape of the 20th century.

Renaissance newsletters → Newsletter renaissance

Now that we've established Substack was basically invented by the Medicis (and that no one's had an original idea in the past 500 years) let’s look at some of the parallels between early and modern newsletters.

Newsletters, both Renaissance and modern, fundamentally decentralize information flows. In 16th century Europe the church and the state enjoyed something close to an information monopoly. But with the rise of early newsletters, a loose network of writers across cities began producing reports that traveled via merchants, diplomats, and private couriers. This created a more pluralistic ecosystem, where news of the same event might reach readers in different forms from Rome, Paris, or Amsterdam, each adding to a patchwork, if occasionally contradictory, understanding.

Today's newsletter renaissance similarly responds to the excessive centralization that dominated late 20th century media. After decades where a handful of newspapers, TV networks, and eventually tech platforms controlled information distribution, newsletters are once again empowering thousands of individual creators to publish on their own terms.

Instead of everyone reading from the same front page, audiences now curate personal feeds from a mix of local updates, industry dispatches, and political commentary. This shift has been especially valuable for voices historically sidelined by the editorial gatekeeping of legacy media.

The key distinction, though, lies in intent. Early newsletters were decentralized out of necessity: the infrastructure for mass communication didn’t yet exist. Today’s newsletters choose decentralization, often as a reaction to institutional dominance, platform dependency, and eroding trust. Where Renaissance newsletters fractured the authority of church and crown, many of their modern counterparts are pushing back against corporate media and algorithmic control.

But these dynamics never remain static. Most people won’t pay for 15 different subscriptions, cost and convenience inevitably drive consolidation. We’re already seeing major newsletter creators bundle offerings. For example, The Pragmatic Engineer recently offered PerplexityPro access as part of a subscription package, creating a bundle more valuable than its individual parts.

Bundling, in fact, is becoming ubiquitous. Revolut’s Premium tier includes Tinder Gold and NordVPN; their Metal plan throws in access to the Financial Times. For €17 a month, you get services that would cost far more separately (FT alone is nearly €50). These packages reflect a familiar arc: the early explosion of independent offerings gives way to re-aggregation, echoing the eventual consolidation that followed the initial burst of Renaissance newsletters.

Elites, but bigger

By modern standards, Renaissance newsletter audiences were tiny. To put it in perspective: around 1500, the population of what is now Italy was roughly 10 million. Meanwhile, The New York Times' morning newsletter had 17 million subscribers at the start of this year. Add to that the fact that only 20–30% of people in Renaissance Europe could read, and you’re looking at a profoundly limited audience.

These early newsletter readers were predominantly societal elites forming something pioneering: the first communities of readers. Newsletters would arrive and then be read aloud and discussed in noble households or at social gatherings. This shared consumption of information created an early precursor to what we now recognize as the public sphere: groups of people with a common understanding of current events based on shared information, dare I say, facts.

Though the scale has changed dramatically, some core dynamics persist. Many modern newsletters, still cater to relatively affluent audiences, after all, they're the segment that can most easily afford multiple subscription fees. This economic reality creates a parallel with Renaissance information networks: both create a sense of belonging to an exclusive, informed circle.

The avvisi gave readers a sense of being “in the know,” part of a privileged network with access to valuable intelligence. Today’s newsletters offer a similar appeal. Whether it’s tech professionals reading in-depth industry analysis or policy experts following niche political commentary, subscription signals commitment. These communities tend to be more engaged than passive audiences scrolling algorithmically curated headlines.

Renaissance newsletters followed a straightforward model: wealthy patrons paid directly for information they considered valuable. Producing avvisi required skilled correspondents and reliable couriers, investments that didn’t come cheap. With no advertising in sight, all funding came through subscriptions or patronage.

Fast forward to today, and we’re witnessing a return to that model after a century dominated by advertising. Many newsletters now rely entirely on direct payments. That shift changes the fundamental relationship: the reader, not the advertiser, is the customer.

This has real implications for content. Renaissance writers catered precisely to what their subscribers wanted, whether it was battlefield updates or court gossip. Today’s newsletter creators do the same, thriving by serving niche audiences with a level of depth mass media often can’t or won’t provide. Direct funding encourages specialization, producing a very different kind of journalism than ad-supported platforms.

Of course, the outcomes are not identical. Renaissance newsletters mostly reinforced existing power structures, keeping valuable information inside elite circles. Today’s newsletters hold the potential to build more open, interest-based communities, anyone with an internet connection can, in theory, join. But economic barriers persist. As paywalls proliferate, access to high-quality information still tracks closely with wealth.

Our newsletter past is your newsletter futures

Though we’re currently enjoying a flourishing, decentralized phase, history suggests that consolidation is inevitable. We’re likely to see major platforms acquiring successful independent newsletters, creators forming collectives to streamline operations, and more bundling of complementary content and service. The question isn’t whether this consolidation will happen, it will, but whether it can preserve the diversity and independence that makes the current ecosystem so rich.

In the meantime, as the newsletter landscape continues to expand, those that succeed will be the ones that foster real community. Just as Renaissance newsletters helped form early reading publics, the newsletters that endure tomorrow will be those that create a sense of belonging, not just through what they publish, but through how they connect their readers to one another.

Legacy media’s response to the newsletter boom mirrors how early newspapers once absorbed and standardized the newsletter format. Today, we’re already seeing established publishers launch on newsletter platforms (the New York Magazine most recently) and hire high-profile writers. But we’re not headed back to the era of monolithic mass media. What’s emerging is (hopefully) a more networked model, where individual voices retain their identities within larger ecosystems.

Our not-exactly-protestant Spirit of Capitalism

Unfortunately, it's very unlikely that I'll ever own anything like a yacht, but if I did, I'd absolutely christen it the "Spirit of Capitalism." And on this note, I want to let you know that changes are coming to the newsletter, most notably: we'll start experimenting more with paywalls.

Many of you already support our work and some have even joined the partnership program, which we truly appreciate. We believe this newsletter offers meaningful value, and we want to keep growing it in ways that serve you, our readers, while also making it sustainable for us to produce.

We’re (finally!!!) releasing the first findings from our European media funding research in two weeks, on May 22. Beyond that, we’ve got all sorts of new formats, benchmarks, and guides in the works.

Some content will remain free. But some of it has taken so much time and effort that we want to test whether there’s a real market for it. For the past year and a half, this newsletter has mostly been a hobby project, one that sparked valuable conversations and even led to some viable consulting work. Now, we’re looking to grow it into something more substantial. To do that, we need to understand its business potential.

So, the first experiment begins today: we’re offering 35% off an annual subscription for the next seven days. If you’re willing to bet on us, and trust that the upcoming content will be even more valuable than what you’ve seen so far, you can get 12 months of access for just €39, until the next edition drops.

Like those Renaissance newsletter writers we discussed, we're searching for our patrons Medicis or otherwise. Consider this our own cyclical return to the direct-pay model of newsletter history, just with significantly less papal gossip (unless you really want that, in which case, email me your requests directly).

(P.S. The excellent Ioana Epure contributed to this edition, check out her newsletter, it inspires me every week.)