In September, The Lunduke Journal attempted an experiment: Run no discount sales all month long and see what happens.

The result? The Lunduke Journal made a whole lot less money! So much so that, if we kept doing that, we’d go out of business. Surprise!

Let’s drop that idea in the “Welp, that didn’t work!” bucket.

In order to make up for the month of lost revenue — and make sure The Lunduke Journal can continue operating 100% free from any influence of Big Tech, just as we have for the last several years — we’re going to run a massive discount sale all weekend long.

50% off. Everything. Monthly, Yearly, & Lifetime.

All of the following discounts come with all of the perks (MP4 Downloads, Forum access, and eBooks) and are available through Sunday, October 12th.

Note: If you picked up a subscription over the last few days, you will be contacted and offered the 50% off discounted price to be applied retroactively. Because I like you. And you’re awesome.

50% Off Yearly or Monthly Subscription:

Available via both Locals and Substack. (This includes full access the community Forum, and all other perks.)

That means $3 / Month. Or $27 / Year (which works out to $2.25 / Month).

Via Lunduke.Locals.com:

• $3 Monthly Subscription via Locals (Code: AUTOEXEC)

• $27 Yearly Subscription via Locals (Code: CONFIGSYS)

Via Lunduke.Substack.com:

• Monthly or Yearly via Substack (No Code Needed)

Note: You can also grab a Monthly subscription via X, YouTube, or Patreon. There’s no way to offer a discount on those platforms. But those are still good options!

The Famous Lifetime Subscription:

The “World Famous Lunduke Journal Lifetime Subscription” is exactly what it sounds like. Pay once and get full access to The Lunduke Journal. For life.

Now, through Saturday, October 12th, you can snag one at a crazy discount. Normally these are $300… but you can grab one for $150. (You can also pay more if you’d like to donate a little extra.)

The Lifetime Subscription can be obtained via Locals, Substack, or using Bitcoin. All three options work great and are super easy (& all three include access to all of the perks). Scroll down and choose your option.

Note: The Lifetime Subscription only applies to Substack and Locals. Other platforms (such as X, Patreon, & YouTube) do not provide the functionality necessary to create Lifetime Subscriptions.

How to get a Lifetime Subscription via Locals:

1. Go to Lunduke.Locals.com/support.

2. Select “Give Once“.

3. Enter “150“ (or more) into the amount field.

4. After checking out, Lunduke will toss you an email once your account is set to full lifetime status. (This usually happens within a few hours.)

How to get a Lifetime Subscription via Substack:

1. Go to Lunduke.Substack.com/subscribe.

2. Select the “Lifetime Subscription” option.

3. After checking out, Lunduke will toss you an email once your account is set to full lifetime status. (This usually happens within a few hours.)

If you would also like full, Lifetime access to Lunduke.Locals.com (which is included):

1. Make a free account on Lunduke.Locals.com.

2. Email “bryan at lunduke.com” with the email address you use on both Substack and Locals (can be different email addresses).

3. Lunduke will toss you an email once your account is set to full lifetime status on Locals.

How to get a Lifetime Subscription with Bitcoin:

You can also obtain a Lifetime Subscription via Bitcoin.

• Make sure you have a Lunduke.Locals.com or Lunduke.Substack.com account (a free account, to either, works just fine).

• Send $150 worth of Bitcoin (or more) to the following address:

bc1qyjakve8fywm8pz2v99v57yhjj0vzr2vjze6fcq

• Email “bryan at lunduke.com” with the following information: What time you made the transaction, how much was sent (in Bitcoin), and the email address you use (or plan to use) on Locals.com or Substack.com (or both).

No matter which type of subscription you choose, thank you for your support! Every subscription goes directly towards keeping The Lunduke Journal running well into the future.

-Lunduke

September was an absolutely wild month for The Lunduke Journal.

The Short-Short Version: Views skyrocketed to over 11 million. New free subscribers way up too (over 7 thousand new free subs). Total shows for 2025 on track to hit 300 in the coming weeks. On the flip side, new paid subscriptions were down (which means the “no sales” experiment didn’t work).

Mixed bag, but overall pretty gosh darned good!

If you’re interested in the details — and would like a peek behind the curtain — read on!

Stats for September

Here’s some Lunduke Journal stats for September:

• 274 shows, so far, in 2025 (Jan 1st → Oct 8th, +36 shows over the last 30 days).

• 11.1 Million views (or listens) during the last month (September) alone.

• 139,315 free subscribers (not including audio podcast feeds).

• 7,498 new free subscribers on the primary platforms.

• $0.00 (zero) taken from any corporation.

Yeah. You read that right. 11.1 Million “views/listens” in September (up from a bit over 9 Million the month prior). With over 7 thousand new (free) subscribers.

That’s a close to 20% jump in “views”… and total free subscribers grew by over 5% month-on-month. Fantastic growth numbers. Numbers the other Tech News outlets would kill for.

This really reinforces that the current strategy is working:

• Focus on stories that no other Tech Journalist is covering.

• Publish everywhere (on every major platform).

• And publish all shows for free.

That, right there, is a winner. The stories published by The Lunduke Journal are spreading further and further every month. This is amazing news.

The “No Sales” Experiment Results

Not every strategy can be a success, though!

Case in point: Experimenting with having no sales and subscription discounts. Whew! That didn’t work!

With the rapidly growing audience size, September seemed like a good time to test the waters by no longer doing any subscription discount sales.

You see, most Tech News outlets are on the verge of going out of business. Most of them teeter on the edge almost every month… despite the fact that they take funding from Big Tech (for “paid stories”, ads, and more).

Since The Lunduke Journal has a firm “No Big Tech Money” policy… we’ve relied entirely on subscriptions and one-time contributions from all of you.

One of the most effective tools in our “Keep us Big Tech free” tool belt has been discounted subscription sales. Things like “25% off new Subscriptions”.

Over 60% of The Lunduke Journal’s income, over the last year, has come in via such sales. In previous years that number was even higher.

But what would happen if we did away with sales entirely? I wanted to answer that question (in large part because that would free me from needing to run such sales). And, with the rapidly growing audience size, now seemed like a reasonable time to give it a try.

So I resolved to run zero sales during the month of September (last month) and see how it went.

The results were… not sustainable. To put it mildly.

After a month of “no sales”, at the start of October, I decided to run a different kind of promotion… but not a traditional “discount sale”. And those results were nowhere near what was needed to make up for the lack of traditional sales.

I’m still looking through the numbers (I keep lots of spreadsheets), but one thing is clear:

In order to keep The Lunduke Journal sustainable into the future, traditional sales need to make a return. Oh well. Getting rid of sales was worth a shot!

On the plus side, bringing back sales will allow us to remain Big Tech free… and keep us running well into the future.

Which is already a big improvement over the other, Brand X Tech News. So not too shabby!

Thank You!

Seriously. None of this would be possible without all of you. I strive to do you proud every day.

-Lunduke

All Lunduke Journal subscribers now have full access to DRM-Free, MP4 versions of every single video released during 2024 and 2025.

No matter where you subscribe to The Lunduke Journal (Substack, Locals, YouTube, X, or Patreon), and no matter what kind of subscription you have (Monthly, Yearly, or Lifetime), you can go to the Subscriber Perks page to get access to some pretty rad goodies:

• DRM-Free, MP4 versions of all shows

• A dozen PDF eBooks (plus some goofy games)

• Full access to the exclusive Lunduke Journal forum

All my way of saying “Thank You” for supporting the important work of The Lunduke Journal. Couldn’t do it without you.

Also worth noting:

Any Lifetime Subscription (or Yearly Subscription picked up through Substack) is “Buy One, Give One” through Friday. Meaning you get a subscription for yourself… and can give a free subscription to whoever you like!

Which. You know. Is pretty awesome.

-Lunduke