Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Clayton Davis's avatar

For me, the biggest tell on Substack's changing nature is how many accounts are shifting from read-only to reading & writing. A year ago, when the site was first blowing up and you looked at the comment section of a popular post, only a few people would have their own writing account. As I write this, there are 20 comments on the post and almost everybody has their own newsletter or blog pinned next to their name. There's a growing middle layer between absolute superstars and anonymous lurkers, and that's *huge* for the long-term success of any social media platform.

Expand full comment
William Collen's avatar

Although I'm quite pleased with the centralizing dynamic you describe, and wish it all the best, I think there will still be a place for the small bloggers, operating halfway between Tumblr and Substack, writing which laser focus on their own unique obsession. Substack definitely has a streamlined and "solved" feel; it's like a literary quarterly, the BlogSpot / WordPress crowd making the zines one finds in coffee shops. Both are necessary.

As long as Substack continues to run the recommendations feature as it has been run so far - an organic outflow of particular writers' preferences - I see no problems for the future. But if they ever decide to bypass the human element and give algorithmic recommendations, the siloing you describe will be gone, and the end will be near.

A close analogy to Substack's model would be Dostoyevsky's "Writer's Diary", the magazine he wrote and published entirely by himself from 1877-1881. I assume he still referred to himself as a "writer", probably also a "journalist."

Expand full comment
110 more comments...

No posts