On Writing for Pay

Some philosophy professors, on top of all the work they do for the universities at which they’re employed, write public philosophy, and sometimes such writing is on the Substack platform, with some or all of what they write available only to paid subscribers. Is there anything wrong with this? Walter Veit (Reading) thinks there is something wrong with it, and makes his case here. Richard Chappell (Miami) responds here, arguing that we shouldn’t criticize philosophers for paywalling their writing. I’d go further and say, not only is there nothing wrong with it—it’s great! If you can convince a whole bunch of people that, of all the things in this world they could otherwise be spending money on, they should spend it on reading your philosophical thoughts, good for you. Your subscribers, in virtue of paying for your writing, are probably going to pay more attention to it than they otherwise would, and this attention begets further attention to you and your interlocutors—and to…