A Note to Subscribers from Paul Krugman

A few changes to this newsletter, hopefully benign

First, I would like to express my deep gratitude to everyone who has subscribed to this newsletter so far. As I hope you can tell, I’ve been greatly enjoying the freedom to write in my own voice — I almost feel guilty for having so much fun in what promise to be mostly terrible times. Furthermore, the response has been gratifying: I passed 119K subscribers as I was drafting this note, and the word is still getting out.

Let me also say that the newsletter already seems to be developing a lively, interesting “comment culture.” I’m trying to read as many comments as I can; I find them a very helpful source of feedback and often of useful information, with surprisingly little trolling.

By the way, a special shout-out to my wife, Robin Wells, who is now my only editor — and is constantly reminding me, among other things, to do a better job of explaining the graphs.

All of this as preamble: I’m making some changes. The first is changing the name. “Krugman wonks out” was the name I chose when I first opened this account, hoping to use it as a place to post stuff too technical for the New York Times. Well, I’m no longer writing for the Times, and not all posts here will be wonky.

So I’ve changed the name to “Me! Me! Me!” OK, actually to “Paul Krugman.” I considered alternatives that might convey more information about what the newsletter will cover, but the truth is that I have no idea where this new freedom will take me. The one thing I’m sure of is that these will be my personal thoughts, probably mostly about economics, but who knows?

More consequentially, I’m introducing a paid subscriber tier, at what Substack tells me are the average rates across all their newsletters: $7 a month, $70 per year.

I won’t take anything away from those who choose not to pay: My near-daily posts on whatever seems interesting or important, like the one I’ll put up tomorrow morning, will remain free to everyone. Paid subscriptions will provide access to additional stuff. Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out what will go behind the paywall, but it might include long-form explainers on things like the economics of tariffs and immigration, detailed number crunching and videos. We’ll just have to see what works.

Some of you may also want to consider paid subscriptions as a kind of tip jar. Writing this Substack is, effectively, a full-time job, with many hours spent on writing and, especially, research. I don’t write stuff off the top of my head — I always want to feel comfortable that I have a good grasp of a topic before I write about it, and I do a lot of background work that never appears in what you read.

I’m really, really not doing this job for the money, but as an economist I’m supposed to believe in incentives, and some monetary payment might make it easier to explain why I’m still slaving away on the computer when I should have started cooking dinner. (Hmm: maybe an occasional cooking video for paid subscribers?)

If you find it hard to pay, no worries. As I said, the near-daily posts will remain free. And I’ll remain deeply grateful that you’re interested in what I have to say.