I've remained subscribed to some newsletters for over 20 years. The authors managed to keep my attention all that time. But then, one day, they decided to switch to an AI-generated newsletter without making any announcement.
After a couple of weeks of blue high-tech image thumbnails, I simply hit unsubscribe. Here's what happened: a person earned my trust. He maintained that trust for all those years. But then he thought the best way to improve was to take himself out of the equation. If you're just going to present me with prompt-generated content, I hate to break it to you but I have access to ChatGPT, and I can do that myself.
The reason the human voice matters to me is because there's real experience behind the words. The oldest newsletter in my inbox is from when I was just 12 years old. It was from a French writer I used to read. After a decade of following him, the emails stopped coming. I was only reminded a few years later, when the emails started coming back.
I didn't jump on it immediately. I didn't even remember who it was. But when I read one at random, the words were different, the tone was nostalgic, and the name was unfamiliar.
I dug deeper and found that the author's son had taken over the newsletter. That was my cue to unsubscribe. But he hadn't used AI to replace his father's voice. He didn't use any tricks to garner clicks. Instead, he announced that his father had passed away and that he would share some stories.
I remained subscribed until the last story was released. I rarely sign up for any newsletter. If I do, it's intentional because I'm interested in what the author has to say. It's not much deeper than that.
There is a big difference between a newsletter written by a person, one that breathes and wanders and sometimes takes his time. Compared to the rapid fire, mechanical hum of AI-generated content. One feels like someone is thinking with you. The other feels like a monetization strategy.