Dear Roca Nation:
Today you’ll notice that we’ve switched newsletter platforms. This email, for the first time, is coming from Substack.
Here, we explain why we made this switch and how it will improve your Roca experience.
When we started Roca – as 23-, 24-, and 25-year-olds – our solution was to deliver news where we and our peers were: Instagram. It was there that we launched our business, becoming the platform’s largest Gen Z-focused social media news outlet. From there, we expanded from Instagram news summaries to delivering newsletters and long-form reporting via email.
Throughout that period, we developed an ad business – and realized the dangers of it. The revenue is unpredictable and it inherently puts you at the behest of your advertisers. While we’ve never had an advertiser try to exert control over us or our content, we always hated the idea that that was even possible.
Beyond that, the volatility of the ad business made it difficult to fund original reporting. Simply put, this was a reality: Would we have the revenue to fund a reporting trip? The answer may depend on an AI company’s willingness to buy an ad that month.
So we turned to you, asking readers to become Roca Members. That has enabled us to break free of ad dependence and funded our reporting. I’m not exaggerating when I say that your subscriptions enabled us to sleep at night.
Throughout that, though, we wanted to give our readers more. Most importantly, as our members grew, we wanted Roca to feel like a membership, not just a subscription. We wanted to communicate with you all and let you communicate with each other. We also wanted to streamline our content, so you all would have easy access to our documentaries and interviews.
So today, we write from Substack.
Substack is the largest subscription platform for independent writers. We’ve been users for years, relying on it to follow other writers we like. We love the platform and are thrilled to start using it ourselves.
What Substack Means for You
You don’t need to do anything to keep receiving Roca – all readers, both free and paid, will continue receiving our newsletters as usual.
Moving forward, we’ll be expanding our membership offerings, providing you all with more content, interaction, and customizability.
On our old platform, some people weren’t getting emails, while others had difficulty subscribing or accessing premium content. These problems should now be solved.
What You’ll Get Here
The Current, our free newsletter that summarizes the biggest news stories of the day.
We The 66, our premium daily deep-dive newsletter, providing the facts on the biggest stories: What, exactly, did Charlie Kirk say? What is in the Big Beautiful Bill? Why is Peter Thiel talking about the antichrist? You’ll find all of that here.
Roca on-the-ground: Every week, we release mini-documentaries and long-form articles documenting life around the country and in other important or interesting places.
If you want to opt in or out of any of these, you can do so via your Substack account settings.
Beyond all of this content, Substack will serve as our hub for building and hosting the Roca community: Discussions, livestreams, and interviews – a whole bunch of content that we couldn’t make before and now, because of Substack, we can. We’ll be building out these offerings in the weeks ahead, and are very excited to do so.
Thank you, all, for riding the Roca Wave. And if you’re not a Roca Member but would like to become one, you can do so here:
Want to check out our recent articles? Find the latest below, all for FREE:
And lastly, per usual, here are today’s four need-to-know stories:
Researchers discovered that ancient humans made fire in England 350,000 years earlier than previously known (free)
Disney agreed to invest $1B in OpenAI, allowing the company to use its characters in AI-generated videos and images
European fan groups called on FIFA to halt ticket sales for the 2026 World Cup after ticket prices were revealed to reach thousands of dollars
The US imposed sanctions targeting six oil tankers and individuals close to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro (free)
See you all tomorrow.
—Max and Max
Super excited for this!
Excellent! Smart move for sure - for those of us few who still read