Last updated: 2 August 2026

1. About these Terms

These Terms and Conditions apply when you visit readconstant.com, create a free account, subscribe to a newsletter, buy or use a paid membership, post a comment or otherwise use CONSTANT.

CONSTANT is operated by Cameron, a sole trader trading as CONSTANT. References to “CONSTANT”, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Cameron trading as CONSTANT.

Our contact details are:

Please read these Terms before creating an account or buying a membership. By doing so, you agree to them. If you do not agree, you should not create an account, buy a membership or use member-only features.

Our Privacy Notice explains how we use personal information. Our Cookie Policy explains the cookies and similar technologies used by the website.

2. Who may use CONSTANT

CONSTANT is intended for a general audience and is not directed at children under 13.

If you are under 18, you may only buy a paid membership with the involvement and permission of a parent or guardian. Your parent or guardian should review these Terms with you and is responsible for the purchase.

You may only create an account or buy a membership if doing so is lawful in the country where you live. Paid memberships are available worldwide where supported by our payment provider and permitted by law. We may restrict availability in a country where reasonably necessary for legal, tax, security or payment-processing reasons.

3. Membership options

CONSTANT currently offers the following membership options.

Free Reader

Free Reader membership does not carry a subscription charge. Its current benefits are:

  • free CONSTANT Editions every week;
  • delivery directly to your inbox;
  • access to the complete archive of free Editions; and
  • sources and further reading with Editions.

CONSTANT Member

CONSTANT Member is a paid membership. It currently includes everything in Free Reader, together with:

  • every CONSTANT Edition;
  • members-only essays;
  • full access to the complete archive;
  • sources and further reading with Editions;
  • the ability to join the discussion on Editions where comments are enabled; and
  • the opportunity to support independent, reader-funded publishing.

The membership page and checkout show the benefits, price and billing period available when you subscribe. If information at checkout differs from a general description elsewhere on the website, the information shown at checkout will apply to that purchase, unless this would reduce a right that the law gives you.

4. Publishing schedule and editorial changes

We currently aim to publish free Editions every week and to publish additional content for paid members. This is an editorial target, not a guarantee that an Edition will be published on a particular day or that a fixed number of Editions will be published in every period.

Research, illness, holidays, technical issues, breaking events and other editorial or operational circumstances may affect the schedule. We may also update, correct, expand, archive or remove content where reasonably necessary.

We may make reasonable changes to membership benefits to develop the publication, respond to reader needs, comply with law or deal with technical and operational requirements. We will not materially reduce the core benefits of a paid membership during a period you have already paid for without giving reasonable notice and, where appropriate, offering a suitable remedy.

5. Creating and using an account

You must provide an email address that you control and keep your account information accurate. Ghost uses passwordless sign-in links to give you access to your account. You must keep your email account and sign-in links secure and must not allow another person to use them to access paid content.

Membership is personal to you. You must not share, sell or transfer your account, or create accounts through automated or deceptive means. Please contact us promptly if you believe somebody has accessed your account without permission.

You are responsible for activity carried out through your account unless it results from something for which we are responsible.

Unsubscribing from a newsletter does not delete your member account or cancel a paid membership. Paid memberships must be cancelled as described in section 7.

6. Paid subscriptions, prices and automatic renewal

CONSTANT Member currently costs:

  • £7 per month for monthly billing; or
  • £70 per year for annual billing.

Prices are charged in pounds sterling. If your card or bank account uses another currency, your provider may apply its own exchange rate or fees. Any tax that we are legally required to collect will be shown before you complete the purchase.

Payments are processed securely by Stripe. We do not receive or store your full card number or card security code. Stripe's own terms and privacy information also apply to its payment services.

Your paid membership begins when payment is successfully completed and access is activated. You will receive confirmation electronically through Ghost, Stripe or both.

Paid memberships renew automatically using the payment method on file. A monthly membership renews each month and an annual membership renews each year, unless it is cancelled before the next renewal date. The subscription price is charged at the start of each billing period.

We may change prices for future billing periods. We will give reasonable advance notice of a price increase affecting an existing subscription and explain when it will take effect. You may cancel before the new price is charged. A price change will not alter a billing period that you have already paid for.

7. Cancelling a paid membership

You may cancel at any time through your account settings in Ghost Portal. You may also ask us for help by emailing hello@readconstant.com.

Unless a statutory cancellation right or another exception in section 8 applies:

  • cancellation stops the next automatic renewal;
  • no further subscription payment will be taken after the current billing period;
  • your paid access continues until the end of the monthly or annual period you have already paid for; and
  • after that period, your account will normally become a free account unless you ask us to delete it.

Cancelling a paid membership does not automatically unsubscribe you from free newsletters. You can change newsletter preferences separately through your account or the unsubscribe link in an email.

8. Cooling-off period and refunds

If you are a UK consumer, you may cancel your first paid membership without giving a reason within 14 days of entering into the contract. CONSTANT will honour a full refund during this initial 14-day cooling-off period, including where member content was made available immediately.

You can exercise this right through your account cancellation facility, by emailing hello@readconstant.com, or by using the model cancellation form at the end of these Terms. Your cancellation only needs to be sent before the 14-day period expires. If you cancel through your account during this period, emailing us as well will help us identify and process the refund quickly, but it is not a condition of your right to cancel.

When the initial 14-day cooling-off right is used, paid access may end when the cancellation and refund are processed. We will return the relevant payment to the original payment method without undue delay and within the period required by law.

After the initial 14-day cooling-off period, cancelling normally stops the next renewal and does not produce a full or partial refund for unused time in the current billing period. We may nevertheless provide a full or partial refund where:

  • the law requires it;
  • a duplicate or incorrect payment was taken;
  • the paid service was materially unavailable or did not match what was promised; or
  • we agree that a refund is appropriate in the circumstances.

Nothing in these Terms limits your statutory rights. Digital content and services supplied to consumers must meet the standards required by applicable consumer law. Contact us if you believe the paid service is faulty, materially unavailable or not as described.

Consumers outside the UK may have additional or different cancellation and refund rights under mandatory local law. Those rights are not excluded by these Terms.

9. Failed payments

If a payment fails, Stripe may retry the payment and may ask you to update your payment method. Your subscription may be marked as past due during this process. If payment is not recovered, paid access may be suspended or end.

You remain responsible for subscription charges properly incurred before cancellation. We will not charge you for a billing period beginning after a cancellation has taken effect.

10. Comments and other submissions

Members may be able to comment on Editions or submit feedback where those features are enabled. You retain ownership of content you submit.

By submitting content, you give CONSTANT a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, format, display and distribute it as reasonably necessary to operate, secure and present the relevant discussion or feature. This licence lasts for as long as the content remains published, subject to your legal rights and our retention obligations.

You must not submit content that:

  • is unlawful, defamatory, threatening, abusive, hateful, discriminatory, sexually explicit or harassing;
  • infringes copyright, trade marks, privacy, confidentiality or another person's rights;
  • contains somebody else's personal information without a lawful reason and appropriate permission;
  • impersonates another person or misrepresents your identity or affiliation;
  • is spam, undisclosed advertising or repetitive promotion;
  • contains malware, malicious code or instructions intended to compromise a person, account or system; or
  • is otherwise materially unrelated to the discussion or intended to disrupt it.

Comments express the views of their authors, not necessarily those of CONSTANT. We do not pre-approve every comment and cannot guarantee that all comments are accurate or appropriate.

We may moderate, hide or remove content, or restrict commenting, where we reasonably believe this is necessary to enforce these Terms, protect readers, comply with law or maintain a constructive discussion. For serious or repeated breaches, we may suspend or close the relevant account in accordance with section 15.

To report a comment or request removal of your own submission, email hello@readconstant.com and identify the relevant Edition and comment.

11. Intellectual property and permitted use

Unless otherwise stated, the website, CONSTANT name and branding, Editions, newsletters, guides, graphics, layouts and other original material are owned by or licensed to CONSTANT and are protected by intellectual property law.

We give you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read content made available to your membership tier. This right is for your private, non-commercial use and ends when the relevant access or membership ends.

You must not, without our prior written permission:

  • republish, reproduce, sell, license or commercially exploit a substantial part of CONSTANT content;
  • share paywalled Editions, account access or member-only downloads with people who are not entitled to receive them;
  • systematically scrape, harvest or extract content or member information;
  • use CONSTANT content to train or develop a commercial artificial intelligence or machine-learning system; or
  • remove copyright, attribution or other rights notices.

This section does not prevent fair dealing, quotation, private study, non-commercial research or any other use permitted by law. Brief quotations must be accurate, proportionate and accompanied by appropriate attribution and, where reasonably possible, a link to the original Edition.

Third-party quotations, photographs, illustrations, trade marks and linked materials remain the property of their respective owners and may be subject to separate terms.

12. Editorial content is not professional advice

CONSTANT publishes journalism, commentary, analysis and opinion about history, philosophy, politics, technology, money, culture and related subjects. It is provided for general information and education.

Content is not financial, investment, legal, medical, tax or other professional advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell or take a particular action. You should obtain appropriate professional advice and check primary or current sources before making a decision that may significantly affect you.

We take reasonable care with our research and corrections, but historical evidence, current events and interpretations can be incomplete, disputed or change over time. We do not promise that every statement will always be complete, error-free or current. If you believe an Edition contains an error, please contact us so we can review it.

CONSTANT may link to sources and websites operated by other people. Links are provided for context and convenience and do not necessarily amount to endorsement. We do not control third-party websites and are not responsible for their content, availability or privacy practices.

The website relies on services supplied by Ghost, Stripe and other infrastructure providers. Their own terms may apply when you interact directly with their services. Nothing in this section reduces our responsibility for providing the CONSTANT service with reasonable care and skill.

14. Availability of the website

We aim to keep the website and member content available, but we do not promise uninterrupted or error-free access. Maintenance, security work, internet failures, third-party outages or events outside our reasonable control may cause temporary disruption.

We will take reasonable steps to restore service and reduce material disruption. If a serious or prolonged problem materially affects paid access, contact us and we will consider the remedy required by law and the circumstances.

15. Suspending or ending access

We may suspend a feature or an account where reasonably necessary to investigate a security issue, failed payment, unlawful activity or a suspected breach of these Terms.

We may close an account or end access where:

  • you materially or repeatedly breach these Terms;
  • payment remains unpaid after reasonable attempts to recover it;
  • your use creates a material security, legal or operational risk;
  • we are required to do so by law; or
  • CONSTANT stops offering the relevant service.

Where reasonably possible, we will explain the reason and give you an opportunity to address the issue before permanent action is taken. We may act immediately where necessary to protect another person, the service or a legal obligation.

If we permanently end the paid service for reasons unrelated to your breach, we will stop future renewals and provide a fair refund for any material unused part of a prepaid billing period. If access is ended because of your material breach, any refund will depend on the circumstances and your legal rights.

16. Our responsibility to you

We are responsible for loss or damage you suffer where it is a foreseeable result of our breach of these Terms or our failure to use reasonable care and skill. Loss is foreseeable if it was an obvious consequence or if both you and we knew it might happen when the contract was made.

We are not responsible for:

  • loss or damage that was not foreseeable;
  • business losses, including loss of profit, revenue, business opportunity or goodwill, where you use CONSTANT wholly or mainly as a consumer; or
  • delay or disruption caused by an event outside our reasonable control where we have taken reasonable steps to reduce its effects.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits responsibility where it would be unlawful to do so, including responsibility for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or your statutory consumer rights.

17. Privacy

We use personal information as described in our Privacy Notice. That notice includes information about Ghost, Stripe, newsletters, analytics, comments, data retention and your data protection rights.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms to reflect changes to CONSTANT, membership options, technology, law or our business practices.

If a change materially affects an existing paid membership, we will give reasonable notice by email or through the website before it takes effect. A price increase will apply only as described in section 6. If a material change takes effect during a prepaid period and places you at a significant disadvantage, you may contact us to discuss cancellation and any remedy required by law.

The date at the top shows when these Terms were last updated. Changes will not remove rights that you have already acquired under law or a completed purchase.

19. Governing law and disputes

Please contact us first if you have a complaint. We will try to resolve it fairly and within a reasonable time.

These Terms and any dispute or claim relating to them are governed by the laws of England and Wales. If you are a consumer living in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you may also rely on the mandatory laws that apply where you live and bring proceedings in your local courts. If you are a consumer outside the UK, this choice of law does not remove any mandatory consumer protection that applies to you in your country of residence.

The courts of England and Wales will have jurisdiction, except that a consumer may bring proceedings in any other court available to them under applicable consumer law.

If any part of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining parts will continue to apply.

20. Contact and complaints

Questions, cancellation notices, refund requests, complaints and reports about comments can be sent to:

Cameron trading as CONSTANT
Email: hello@readconstant.com

Please include enough information for us to identify your account or the relevant payment, but do not send full card details by email.

Model cancellation form

Complete and return this form only if you wish to cancel during a statutory cooling-off period. You may instead send any other clear statement that you wish to cancel.

To: CONSTANT, hello@readconstant.com

I hereby give notice that I cancel my contract for a CONSTANT Member subscription.

Email address used for the membership:

Date the subscription was purchased:

Name of consumer:

Address of consumer:

Signature of consumer, only if this form is sent on paper:

Date: