Paid Subscriptions

The reasons behind my decision to discontinue paid subscriptions

A year ago, I announced a new paid subscription plan. The one year milestone is a natural point to consider the economics of a new venture. I am grateful to readers who opted to purchase a subscription. However, I have decided to discontinue the paid subscription offering and it seems appropriate to briefly explain my decision.

Approximately 2.4% of readers opted to pay for a subscription. This is far below the conversion rate reported by other writers on the Substack platform. I attribute this result to a lack of product-market fit. Most people who pay for subscriptions in the finance and investing field expect to read articles about investment ideas. This is understandable. After all, there are numerous free websites that publish write-ups.

With few exceptions, I restricted commentary on specific companies to Berkshire Hathaway and its competitors. My previous series of write-ups is more along the lines of what readers will pay for, but that is not the type of work I want to publish.

For many reasons, I think that it is not advisable for people who primarily make a living from their investments to discuss their ideas in public. To be very clear, I don’t think that there is anything unethical about such writing, provided full disclosure is provided. But an understanding of basic human psychology leads me to believe that taking frequent public stands on investments can impede sound decision making. The consequences of poor decision making in my investment portfolio would be orders of magnitude more impactful for my finances than earnings from a newsletter.

I have been writing about Berkshire Hathaway for over fifteen years even though it has been most important investment throughout that time. The vast majority of this content has been published free of charge. This is really not a wise course of action. Although I do not believe that my writing on Berkshire Hathaway has impeded my decision-making process so far, the prospect of this happening in the future is real.

I will continue publishing articles on The Rational Walk in the future, although I do not plan to write about individual companies. I will write some articles about Berkshire Hathaway but I will not cover it at the detailed analytical level that has been featured in my recent work, particularly following the 2023 annual report.

I started Great Books Journal last year and I have some other writing projects in mind, although I am not ready to share the details at this point. I would encourage readers to remain free subscribers of The Rational Walk since I plan to continue writing in the future. For now, I will continue to send out new articles via Substack in addition to publishing all articles on rationalwalk.com.

Paid subscribers will receive a pro-rated refund for time left on their subscriptions.

Please be patient since refunds can take some time. I will initiate the process via Substack within the next few hours. Substack is responsible for coordinating refunds with Stripe, the payment processor. If you have not received a refund within two weeks, please contact Substack at support@substack.com and, if this does not resolve the situation, feel free to reply to this email.

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