Our 2015 subscription drive is now open, just in time for our first birthday. We wanted to take a few minutes to talk to you about why you should support Model View Culture and sign up!!

1. Our community needs independent tech media.

Tech media is beholden to the venture capital that funds it and the corporate money that sustains it. Media funded by the existing power structure in technology will never be able to critique or challenge it. Model View Culture is reader-funded and supported, and has never taken venture capital. So you get articles, stories, cultural criticism and news that you won’t find in any other tech press, and our priority is our readers — not returning a profit to VC.

2. Most of our content is published for free online.

In our first year, we published over 150 full-length, professionally edited articles for free on our site, and they were read by hundreds of thousands of people across the world. It’s really important that we offer new content that’s accessible to our community, at no cost, and sales from our subscriptions ensure we can continue to do that.

3. We pay our contributors.

Much of the cultural and knowledge production in tech – from giving talks, to activism and organizing work, to community building – is unpaid. Marginalized members of our community are disproportionately asked to do this work for free. At Model View Culture, we pay all of our writers for their work.

4. We cover the hard topics in tech culture.

Last year our issues explored startup mythology, surveillance culture, workplace abuse, social media violence, cyber sexual assault, online activism, user consent, hiring practices, management models, engineering cultures and institutionalized sexism and racism across technology… and that’s just a partial list. Our articles incorporate deep analysis of power, identity, inequality, corruption and social justice – offering new tools, frameworks and approaches to how we understand, build and use technology. We also highlight emerging leaders in our industry, celebrate community achievements, highlight the most exciting new tech projects, and offer concrete strategies for making things better.

5. We center diverse voices.

In an industry dominated by the opinions of cis white men, Model View Culture intentionally centers the work, writing, achievement and perspective of people who are too often silenced or erased by tech culture. We are so excited about everyone we published in 2014 and can’t wait to work with new and returning contributors in 2015.

6. No advertising in any of our content.

No advertising means a better reading experiences – it also means we don’t comprise our editorial perspective with the interests of advertisers.

7. We publish an awesome free newsletter anyone can subscribe to.

Our Blameful Post Mortem newsletter contains a summary of the top tech, culture and diversity news for the week. We curate it (almost) every week to help spread the most interesting and important news, analysis and critique happening in our community!

8. Running a media company without ads or VC costs money.

Infrastructure costs, accounting services and software, taxes, lawyer’s bills, incorporation, bulk mailing, printing, web design and development, databases, digital publishing tools, online sales platforms, business banking fees, office administration… it all adds up fast. We run a really lean shop and we make the money work, but we really rely on our readers to support us. Every single subscription makes a difference.

9. With your help, we are going to do some great new things this year.

2014 was a huge year for us, and we’re getting ready to do even more this year. As we speak, we’re working on launching the Model View Culture news site: we experimented with some news coverage late last year, and the community response was awesome, showing clear interest and demand for a true alternative tech news source. This year, we’d also like to hire guest editors to put together special issues, expand the type of content we offer, and publish more frequently.

10. Our subscriptions are awesome!

Of course, the #1 reason to subscribe is because you’ll get more new and exclusive content from Model View Culture. Our Quarterlies feature brand new articles, interviews, updates from our editor, images and sometimes even cartoons. For those of you who love print media, you’ll love getting our new issues in your mailbox four times a year – they’re printed by an independent feminist publisher on recycled paper, using zero-VOC and recycled inks, with animal-free bookbinding. If you get a digital subscription instead, you’ll get new issues in PDF, .mobi and .epub formats.

If you’ve read and appreciated Model View Culture’s work this past year, please get a 2015 subscription to Model View Culture so we can keep going. You can purchase an individual subscription, get one for your organization, or donate a subscription (US-shipping only). Located outside the US, or prefer an electronic version? We just posted our 2015 digital subscription as well.

Thanks so much for reading and sharing. We couldn’t do it without you!