According to the sources of the publication, the development of these tools is at an early stage, but in the future, they will be able to offer similar capabilities that various mailing services have. In other words, it can be about using mailing lists and managing a paid subscriber base. Such opportunities are offered, for example, by the Revue platform, which was recently acquired by the social network Twitter. Facebook, in turn, decided not to buy a ready-made platform, but to develop it independently.

There has been an increased interest in paid newsletter platforms in recent years. Their popularity peaked last year, when many journalists and writers had to leave their offices and work remotely due to quarantine measures, and many people simply lost their jobs.

One of the leading players in the newsletter platform market is Substack, founded in 2017. She works with a dozen leading news publications and has over 250,000 paying subscribers worldwide. As of September 2020, the company has annual revenues of $ 7 million. It is clear why this market is beginning to attract more established platforms such as Facebook.

According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, cited by The New York Times, they see a growing trend towards independent journalism as well as monetization through newsletter platforms. The company’s executives hope Facebook will be able to unveil its tools for freelance journalists and writers this summer.