Christina Loff

Introducing Open Tab: a new interview series where independent media founders tell us how they did it. Most of what we hear from media insiders is a story of decline. But a new class of independent media founders is creating powerful businesses around their own work.

Gmail changed how tracking pixels work, so open rates are reading lower across every email platform Your audience hasn’t gone anywhere—this change has had no impact on actual subscriber behavior. Click-through rates, delivery, and engagement have all remained stable. These, along with new subscriber counts, unique views, and paid conversion rates, are the clearest signals of genuine, high-quality engagement and whether people are truly connecting with what you're making. Email may continue getting less reliable. We can’t control how email providers operate, but this is exactly why we are investing in the Substack app, which delivers posts and Notes directly to your audience. On Substack, you have a direct line to subscribers, on a platform whose business model only works when yours does.