Substack competes with other popular platforms such as MailChimp and Patreon. Substack, backed by California-based VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, is growing fast though and now has more than 100,000 paying subscribers across its thousands of newsletters, according to company information.

“Consumers of information are realising that now, because of technology, there’s a lot of value in being able to go direct to individuals that you find useful, or those which give you value, as opposed to having to go through a big organisation where you might be paying a lot of money for stuff you don’t want,” said Bishop, whose Sinocism newsletter was the first publication to appear on Substack in 2017.

Substack and its founders did not respond to requests for comment on this article.

Analysts say technology is the real game changer – making it easier than ever before for sought-after writers to create and deliver a professional-looking information product to consumers themselves.

“There’s so much power packed into all the tech that we have access to,” said Dev Lewis, a fellow at Hong Kong-based think tank Digital Asia Hub and the writer of China India Networked on Substack. “You can record good quality audio and video … and you can do quite a bit of data crunching fairly easily.”

Users also like the ability to filter and receive content direct from their most valued sources.

Nick Marro, global trade lead at The Economist Intelligence Unit, said that the China-focused newsletters he reads help him stay on top of new developments in China more efficiently.

“There’s so much information out there now that getting this content delivered directly to your inbox is useful; it just makes things easier and quicker to read,” said Marro.

Steve Mushero, chief executive of the Shanghai-based server management company ChinaNetCloud, said he is a loyal Sinocism subscriber because he believes in Bishop’s ability to curate the best content.

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“I‘ve paid Bill since he accepted money because I believe in paying for good content,” Mushero said, “It’s by far the best overview of what’s going on, especially on political, international issues, including from both Chinese and foreign media.”

Mark Natkin, founder of Marbridge Consulting, said that content curation has become enormously valuable as the number of media outlets covering China news worldwide has mushroomed.

“It used to be that a Western reader might see a piece about China in The New York Times or Wall Street Journal and that was their China reading for the day. But now that there are so many outlets covering China, readers really feel the need to find someone they can trust to curate all of it for them.”

Natkin said the curation model also makes sense for many talented Western writers, as they can parlay their newsletter business into other opportunities.

“As long as they have a big enough following, they can go on to become public speakers or provide consulting services,” Natkin said.

Jeff Ding, a researcher at the University of Oxford, started writing his own newsletter ChinAI more than two years ago. Ding started his newsletter on MailChimp but later switched to Substack.

“I was getting close to the 2,000 subscriber limit on MailChimp, at which point they [Mailchimp] start charging me. So I switched to Substack because it was free to have as many subscribers as you could get,” said Ding.

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“They just make starting up a newsletter and maintaining it a lot easier. So it felt pretty smooth. And then also, I did a little foray into podcasts as well, and they have a way to distribute podcasts. Those are some of the main advantages for me.”

Lewis also noted a certain network effect when it comes to China content on Substack.

“To be honest, I got into the platform with a bit of [fear of missing out] after seeing a lot of people I follow who started to move there. For example, there’s Bill Bishop’s Sinocism and my friend Jordan Schneider who writes ChinaTalk,” Lewis said.

To be sure, not all writers need a platform like Substack.

Bishop said his goal is to match Taiwan-based writer Ben Thompson, who publishes his tech-focused newsletter Stratechery through his own website.

“[Ben Thompson] is the Godfather. And I mean, he is actually the one who sort of tipped me over into starting to charge,” Bishop said. Stratechery is widely considered the most successful paid tech newsletter today.

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Dr Shangyuan Wu, lecturer at the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore, believes that the future media landscape will be one in which writers on self-publishing platforms exist alongside traditional media outlets.

“Established traditional platforms known for producing credible stories will continue to be appreciated by audiences. It might seem that self-published media, at this point at least, plays a different role – one that funnels specific content to audiences that have particular interests,” Wu said.

But Wu noted the changes that platforms like Substack in the West and WeChat Public Accounts in China, have wrought.

“There is no going back to the days of traditional media and its one-to-many type of communication. There are going to be more voices in the public sphere over time,” she said. “In turn, you can expect more players capable of influencing world views and introducing different versions of reality to audiences.”