
We Are Closing the Toast July First - benbreen
http://the-toast.net/2016/05/13/we-are-closing-the-toast-july-1st/
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benbreen
I'm guessing many HN readers aren't going to be familiar with the Toast
(though I might be wrong?) and just wanted to preemptively defend it. Browsing
the front page right now, it's easy to mistake it for clickbait-y sites
pandering to 20 or 30-something women like Jezebel or Bustle. It's so much
better than its peers, though. In some ways I actually see it as kindred with
some of my favorite elements of the HN community: an unusually thoughtful and
respectful comment section (relatively speaking), and an openness to the
eclectic so long as it's interesting. For instance, among other things on the
front page, there's this little snippet on "How to Politely Decline a Proposal
from a Byzantine Emperor," which is exactly what it sounds like:

[http://the-toast.net/2016/05/09/how-to-politely-decline-a-pr...](http://the-
toast.net/2016/05/09/how-to-politely-decline-a-proposal-from-the-emperor-of-
byzantium/)

It was also one of the only independently run online publications that seemed
to me to be on its way to being quietly successful in a "two or three people
can make a small profit on it indefinitely" sort of way. Guess I was too
optimistic. Anyway, RIP the Toast. I'll miss it.

~~~
x0x0
I try not to be too grumpy, but you know, in light of the recent thread on
here about paying for online content (bad!), paywalls (also bad!) and anything
but static, self-hosted, non-targeted image ads worth probably under 1c cpm
(other ads are superbad!) this is sort of the inevitable outcome...

I actually find gawker sites pretty amazing. You can dislike some of what they
publish, but they've succeeded at the most important thing: making enough
money to pay writers and keep publishing. And they regularly, by accident or
not, commit serious acts of journalism!

~~~
patmcguire
Deadspin is actually pretty good. Sports journalism is kind of the opposite of
tech journalism: smart things written about dumb people.

~~~
jolux
Why do you think athletes are dumb?

~~~
patmcguire
Yeah, I thought about this before I posted. I mean, they're not explicitly
selected on intelligence, so you get the full spectrum of people. And there
are a lot of dumb people in the world, which kind of gets cut off by the
process of deciding who gets to be on TV, etc, unless you're also a good
athlete.

~~~
jolux
Most quarterbacks actually are quite smart. And also there are plenty of dumb
people who get to be on TV: take Wolf Blitzer for example.

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patmcguire
I guess after Mallory Ortberg took over Dear Prudence at Slate the writing was
on the wall. The Toast was a deeply weird site, too bad its gone. Reductress
is the closest substitute.

