Mobility Matters Daily - Where we are going from here
It's time to choose
A special good day to you, my good friend.
After much feedback from your good selves, much thought, and much deliberation, Mobility Matters Daily is making some changes around here.
If you want me to get to the point:
The current daily newsletter will be staying, and will be free to all
I will be publishing extra insight each week that goes in-depth into transport issues and policy initiatives, and what you as policy makers and companies should do about it.
There will also be extra monthly content on policy initiatives and transport solutions of interest. But to get priority, and sometimes exclusive, access to that content, you will need to pay.
The extra weekly and monthly content will be called Mobility Matters Extra. You will need to pay £5 a month, or £60 a year, for this extra content.
If you just want to continue to get the daily newsletter, you don’t need to do anything. That will continue to be free, and it will drop into your inbox at the same time each day. You can upgrade to Extra at any time.
Additionally, for the next 2 weeks, free subscribers will get access to the exclusive weekly content as a trial run.
Now that you know the basic jist of the plans of the future, it is time to go into them in more detail, and the reason for the change. You deserve to know why, after all.
Why the change?
Some of you may remember the public service announcement that I posted a few weeks ago. I can safely say that a lot of you provided some excellent feedback, for which I cannot be more grateful. This feedback was varied and complex, but it can best be summarised as so.
You like the randomness. The fact that every day you get a link to some random issue, you seem to really like. Somebody called the newsletter a ‘Lego box’ of transport matters. Your feedback showed that there is a time and place for random things in your lives, and Mobility Matters Daily fulfills that role.
You like the original research. More specifically the links to it. You like being able to click through the links and explore an issue more in depth. There were some comments that the research was not always free, which I have attempted to overcome with footnotes saying what you get for free for each link. But just having it to explore you seem to value a lot.
Some of you want to hear more from me, and some less. I tend to put my opinion on things into each newsletter. Some of you love it, but some of you don’t. It’s a hard line to keep on, and its clear from your comments that I won’t always get it right. On the other hand, you love telling me when you disagree, which I love!
Some of you worry about the time I spend on the newsletter. You seem to love what I do, but bless you, some of you are worried about me. You don’t want me to have burnout, and you don’t want me to do much more than I am doing now. Awww…you guys and gals!! :)
As I also mentioned in my public service announcement, I have to strike a balance personally. I am willing to do more for this newsletter as most of you like it, but going much beyond what I am doing now will seriously eat into my time.
Just to add into the mix, I am very much a proponent of having free and open knowledge sharing. The Daily newsletter does an excellent job of this, sharing with you some of the knowledge that I have built up over the course of writing the newsletter and beforehand, providing links to free knowledge where it can.
But there is a limit to free, as you cannot exactly pay the gas bill with Internet kudos. What became clear through the email exchanges, video calls, and just looking at my own time is that I had two options for the newsletter:
Make tweaks to the current newsletter, to keep within my current time dedicated to the newsletter and not affect my personal life and ‘work’ work;
Create extra content that you will find insightful, but charge for it.
What became clear to me was that not only did I want to do more, but there is appetite among all of you for more as well. I want to give you more insight that you can take action on as policy makers, transport advocates, start-up companies, and general transport geeks. I don’t just want what I share to be interesting. I want it to be useful to you, and I want you to get value from it.
There is also a downside to randomness. Its interesting, but over time it becomes a bit too random. There is no thread through which you can start to make connections as to how issues, initiatives, and ideas link to one another. Or at least not one that is easy to discerne. Articulating that common thread takes time to consider, and words to identify. Something that cannot be done within what I do now and the time available.
So, something has got to change.
How subscriptions will change, and what you will get from them
From now on, there will be two subscription levels to Mobility Matters. Subscribers to Mobility Matters Daily will get the following for free:
The daily newsletter with an ad, every weekday at 12:30pm London time;
A monthly, high level summary of the weekly deep-dives in the last daily newsletter of the month.
Subscribers to Mobility Matters Extra will get the following for £5 a month (paid on a rolling monthly subscription or annually):
The daily newsletter, ad-free;
An exclusive weekly deep-dive into a topical transport issue or trend, including advice on what you can do about it, published each week on Sunday at 5pm London time;
An exclusive monthly deep-dive into a transport scheme or policy initiatives, including advice on what you can do about it, published on the 1st of each month at 5pm London time.
Until Friday 8th October, all Mobility Matters Daily email subscribers will get free trial access to the Mobility Matters Extra content. Just so you can judge how good it is for yourself.
Hang on, you mentioned ads?
Yes, I did. You will probably have seen some ads in recent newsletters for some events that are upcoming that I am helping out with. It seems a few of you have responded well to them, although I have noticed that they have taken up a lot of room on the page.
From 1st October, I am offering space for a small ad in the free newsletter. This is for any period between two weeks and a month, and so long as the ad is transport-related and I approve of it, it goes in. The rates vary according to who you are:
Private business or consultancy - £5 a week
Public sector - £2 a week
Charity or community sector - Free
To find out more about this, drop me an email.
Why are you doing this now?
Because there is no time like the present, really. I have made it no secret that I want to grow the number of people receiving the daily email, and grow the percentage of you reading each one each day. But at the same time, you want more from the newsletter.
From the research I have done into other newsletters, it appears that there is no ideal time to start charging for extra content. My logic for doing this now is that I do not want to start this now, and then charge you later for something that you have had for free. Plus I really would like to start creating this extra content now, hence why I am taking the plunge.
So, what do we do now?
Its up to you, really. You can remain on the free plan and continue to get the daily newsletter. To upgrade, head to the Substack page for this newsletter to find out more.
Above all, enjoy Mobility Matters your way. Whatever way you choose, I am glad that you are with me, and enjoying this ride through the world of transport together. The future of this newsletter is in your hands.
Yours ever faithfully,
James Gleave