Insights from Others
Where musicto.com works at the level of relationships, and the Global Emotions Project works at the level of information, Insights from Others works at the level of reach.
We are wary of email. While we recognize it’s still one of the most powerful ways to reach people at scale, even the great, informative newsletters can go unopened. We believe this is because the information inside costs too much to receive. It leaves an open loop, one more thing to act on, and adds to your thoughtload.
Insights from Others is built to be the opposite.
Outcome
Human connection at scale, at no cost to the reader
Each email is designed to do a single thing: give the reader a moment of connection to another person, and ask for nothing in return. There is no task attached and nothing to carry away except the feeling of being a little closer to a stranger somewhere in the world.
It carries that feeling of connection to people who may never build a playlist or answer a question, but who benefit from feeling connected to other humans all the same.
How it works
You open the email. You read what a stranger in Africa, Europe, or Asia is feeling, and you feel a little more connected to them. That is the whole transaction. There is nothing to act on and no loop left open.
Each of these human stories is drawn from the Global Emotions data.
There is no set schedule. We publish only when we have a genuinely compelling story, and never on a rhythm you would learn to ignore. Occasionally we will bring in an insight from an expert where it fits, but the core engine is always the same: connection, at no cost to you.
Results to date
Insights from Others has been running as a subscriber list since 2025; the program described here starts in July 2026. We currently have 2,815 subscribers and grow by around 300 a month, driven by responses to the Global Emotions Project. As the program develops over the coming year, we will share opening rates and reader feedback here.
What funding accelerates
Funding the Substack will help us improve the editorial, sharpen the design of the landing page, and drive awareness within the Substack ecosystem itself. Yet the real growth of Insights from Others will come through funding the Foundation as a whole. Its organic growth comes from the Global Emotions Project, which in turn comes from the visibility of musicto.com.