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He's IMO a perfect example of the intractability of the "fake news" problem. It's not that there aren't high quality news sources out there, like Matt Levine, it's that the market (in the form of folks willing to pay for it) isn't there.

(Maybe it's technology? Micropayments still aren't effectively a thing?)

The market for Levine is certainly there. He could easily clear 7 figures on Substack.

Why substack? Wouldn’t Wordpress / namecheap do the trick? Why would he need a discovery platform?

Substack would serve as a billing/subscription management platform for him, not discovery.

How lucrative is substack?

their top 10 all make at least 7 figures a year and Matt would almost certainly be a top 10 writer

Is there a source for this?

At least a million a year is quite a lot.

Pretty sure he has a Substack called Big that's about monopolies, but I don't think it's paid.

That's Matt Stoller, and I wouldn't want to confuse the two. Levine has a much stronger grip on reality.

You're thinking of Matt Stoller

Big is by Matt Stoller, not Matt Levine.