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.
I’ve noticed this observation certainly, but when I consider my own likelihood to join that trend I find myself hesitant. I’ve always wanted to write a blog, I feel like it wouldn’t be useless, etc. but I know some of the things I’d want to write about would come up the rest of my career (I’m currently a college student). The risk-reward just isn’t there for someone who isn’t established, wants to write on topics that touch politics and policy, and isn’t either completely left or somewhere right of centre.
Start small! Think of it like an intellectual scrapbook that you make for yourself first, not some audience of random internet people. You don't have to email out everything, or anything at all if you don't want. Post links, articles, data, etc. on things that you find interesting and offer a paragraph or two of reaction. As long as it's said with respect and humility, it's extremely unlikely you'll get canceled or fired.
Over time, you build up your sense of what you care about, what interests you, and what you're good at writing about. There are compounding effects to blogging over time, so the sooner you try it, the better it gets!
Does years of Substack Grow compound influence and brand ambassadors? Time will tell, hopefully there is a significant trickle-down effect.
The ownership economy doesn't have a well-established Middle class, can Substack be different? It needs to grow its product-marketing team to face this challenge, they will have be to shrewd while funding macro environment is challenging.
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."
Wow, Substack does let writers recommend other writers, just like a blog roll. It's down on the bottom with the other crap. I had never noticed. I think my personal built in ad blocker made all that stuff invisible.
The ownership economy in theory empowers the individual Creator, it's the complete opposite of "Centralization" which is what Ad-platforms did. I get what the OP is trying to say though. I think as you say though Will, there's so many niches that they overlap for each of us slightly differently.
The point is to pick a few you can tolerate. For me that might be Substack/LinkedIn combo, for others it might be something else. We will have to see how their Android app performs to get a clearer picture but there are some good signs.
My only worry is that content that's more emo, sentiment based and clickbait does tend to perform the best in more human based cross pollination hubs. But to each their own, enough niches to create a rainbow. We can't all be popular or profitable.
The problem becomes what is the life-cycle of such a platform? Like so many things on the internet, it may be a good stomping ground until it's not. How does Substack create a sustainable product?
Love this. I resonate on a gut level with the sense that something is growing here. My own experience with the platform looks something like this:
- 12 months ago: Started reading one Substack (the author relocated there for the liberty it afforded). Loved the lack of ads, the no-pressure sense of community, the weekly inbox dings to look forward to, the professional look.
- 6 months ago: Began a 10-month research grant (long story, won't get into that here).
- 3 months ago: Realized writing publicly would be a great way to supplement said research grant.
- And as of today I write weekly, read Glenn Greenwald AND Heather Cox Richardson and about 20 other Substacks.
And I feel mildly insulted when referred to as a "blogger".
What you take out of something makes it more valuable. You make a good point that without algorithms, Ads and typical incentive gimmicks, there is more "free space" and a blank canvas feeling.
Adoption of writers to readers does appear to be high which is a good sign. Important to feel that free-speech still exists somewhere.
I agree with the premise of the essay, and centralization on Substack overall is a wonderful thing. However, even if they can remain a neutral party platform, they are never completely safe. Domain registrars are under very strict regulation when it comes to censorship, but hosting providers are not. The largest hosting cloud provider, AWS, very much has their finger on the destruct button for any customer who steps outside the boundaries of what they consider acceptable use. Now consider all of the third party vendors or services beyond hosting that a company like Substack might use, which are required for business operations. Contracts these days often stipulate conditions open to interpretation that allow for easier termination of the relationship. These third parties could bury Substack in legal costs should Substack choose to sue before it would ever matter.
It's the one primary disadvantage to centralization. You become a target.
If anything undoes the Substack project it will be censorship of one kind or another. To date the only case I have heard of of someone being banned from the platform was for egregious plagarism, but time will tell. The fact there aren’t advertisers to answer to is a plus in that regard.
Also the fact that Substack allow you to back up your list is a plus. I’m hoping for the best here but I’m also backing up my work, and I say that as a writer who is in no way political. Which says something about the wider internet culture.
I have not checked out the app since I'm not an iOS user, but if I got into the habit of using the Android app, like I imagine I will, I think the broad range of niche content will be enough to engage me and influence my reading habits. That Substack has a diversity of voices and topics is in itself a kind of product-market fit. Although I'd suggest it will be in 2023 that Substack's "middle class" really emerges.
I hope so for our sake Thomas. Every app or platform has a life-cycle, sadly sometimes they are way too short. My main thing is how to time activity on them for maximum gains. I feel as if Substack product now allows Creators to get the max ROI in the shortest time.
Substack's controversy is actually good PR for it to attract a certain kind of readership and Influencer. Who would not want to be the platform for "Free speech" when it has been so mutilated in recent years. As the town square got beaten down, it finds new roots.
Substack works because the business model is transparent- we give you the infrastructure to get paid subscribers for your writing and in return we take a slice. Simple. No ads, no mysterious algorithms, no Skinnerite strategies to manipulate you into maximising time on app (whether as a creator or as a consumer).
Under these conditions quality can thrive, rather than clickbait. Therefore substack attracts the best writers and becomes prestigious. Which mimetically reinforces itself. And so everyone wins, at least for now.
I’m quietly optimistic about it all- Lord knows I’ve made more money and reached a wider audience with stranger and less ‘optimised for engagement’ essays than I ever did as a blogger or direct newsletter sender.
It sounds like that a lot of it is the lack of algorithms. That's how Facebook and others started. They let users decide what to engage with. Then they wanted to make money, so in came the algorithms. Lyft got its start as the un-Uber with minimal algorithmic garbage and a simple pay structure, but then it had to make a profit and compete with Uber, so that was that. In fact, the original appeal of blogs was the lack of algorithms.
Yes, 'online writer' is actually very good, and not at all pompous; and as a pointer to one's substack, to be able just say 'online writing @ whateveryoursubstackis.substack.com (I assume no such substack exists) is so nice and handy. There's some change happening in reading and writing, for certain.
I sometimes think what we're evolving towards is differing media serving differing cognitive architectures for reading and writing: I know some really great tweeters who are not really very good extended-form or long-form writers; now there's room for everyone - the aphorist (tweets); essayist (blogger/substacker); etc.
This post makes me sad, mainly because I'm afraid you might be right. One of my primary motivations for working on The Sample has been to create a network between readers and writers that can be tapped into by anyone, regardless of what app or publishing platform they're using. It is unclear if I'll be able to scale it and continue working on it full-time though.
IMO one of the biggest hindrances to decentralization efforts is that people who work on them often are too motivated by the tech or the idealogy, without focusing enough on the practical everyday benefits. The practical benefits of centralization are clear, as you've articulated; whereas it takes an enormous amount of effort just to stay even on ease-of-use with decentralized solutions (for example, all the effort I've put into supporting 1-click subscribes on The Sample...).
As such I've put a lot of thought into the "why" behind decentralization; is there something there that makes it really worth trying to fight against the hurricane as you say? Or should I just go work for Substack 🙂?
My current line of thinking is that the primary benefit of decentralization is that it enables experimentation. It's like the exploit vs. explore tradeoff, or in evolution the tension between optimizing for your current environment vs. being ready to adapt to new environments. I like the idea of anyone being able to experiment with new types of reading and writing experiences, not just people who work at Substack.
Take algorithmic recommendations for example: many people (and in particular, Substack) hate them; I personally think they can be a tool for good. The only reason I was even able to get The Sample off the ground is because lots of people still use a decentralized system for reading (email). If everyone exclusively used the Substack app for reading--which only supports Substack newsletters, RSS notwithstanding--The Sample wouldn't have been possible.
Whether or not adaptiveness/the ability to experiment is valuable enough to spend a career on, I don't know. My current line of thinking is that it's not really an either/or, rather there will always be centralized and decentralized systems coexisting to various degrees, and it's worth having people try to support both types of systems and let the optimal "overall system" emerge on its own. Since I like tinkering with different ways of doing things, I'll probably keep working on decentralized systems--they may never have as large of a direct impact as Substack and other centralized systems, but I'll be happy as long as I can make a living from it, and maybe if I come up with any good ideas I can convince larger platforms to adopt them 🙂.
This makes lots of sense honestly cause recently, I've been noticing that I'm wayyy more excited when my favorite substackers post a newsletter (ex. you, sasha) than when my favorite youtubers do. Theres something to be said about that sort of thing I think. Definitely can see substack being a new "cultural growth industry" thing like YouTube but for writers and that's super exciting!
Completely agreed. In the past I would click a link to a blog post, read the post and think it was interesting, and then probably never read that writer again. Now that approximately 100% of such posts have a convenient button to add the writer to my substack feed with one click, I will almost always do so and see all their subsequent posts. I have concerns about centralization, but I can’t deny that my behavior as a reader strongly contributes to it.
But Leaf do you think writing is the top of the funnel and podcasting or video could be the bottom of the funnel once you are more immersed? How does Substack continue its "Creator Stack" for freedom of expression?
What cross-pollination becomes in-app (an Android) will be a significant thing to watch.
Substack is what I have always wanted as a writer and a reader. It’s finally the social media for those who like to write and read!!!! Consider me a die-hard fan.
Gosh, I hope you're right. The advantage of Substack is that it's goals are aligned with the goals of the writers. I worry that it will go the same way as a lot of previous platforms, though, because it'll become saturated with people who will devalue it. Perhaps the silo protects from that, I don't know.
I think you are right, the siloed town square is viable because the individual owns their own relationship and content. It's a small step in the history of UGC (user generated content). It becomes more viable as writers learn to do audio, podcasting and video, which appeals to a younger and more authentic hungry audience.
Yes, while that independence has existed for people who run their own websites, produce their own podcasts, etc., for a long time, the difference is that Substack also provides community. In theory, this gives us the best of both worlds. We'll see how things shake out as time goes on.
I think whether it continues to be good for writers mainly depends on how profitable the Substack business model proves to be, and whether it can grow and still maintain the ideals that it started with.
Creators if anyone know how to diversify their revenue streams, because anything can happen on platforms. Typically writers freelance, have a side gigs, and so forth so Substack can remain a growing theme on the side.
To go all-in on Substack though is seductive if your job as a journalist or freelancer has been disrupted somehow. If Substack made $9 million in 2021, it's not worth them doing a C round in the current VC environment where their valuation would be considerably reduced. Hopefully they have some run rate to continue to grow.
ROI on Substack compound over time, which means many amateur writers actually quit or give up before they would have experienced those longer-term rewards. Substack needs to find a way to persuade them somehow to stay and retain those would-be Middle class influencers. Rising competition, a crypto winter and consumers more leary to spend on subscriptions will make things interesting in 2023.
It seems that Substack has more in common with Shopify than Medium, where the platform made it easier to create and sell and took advantage of good timing. The downside is that the Shopification of e-commerce has turned me off to many brands using it, as it feels designed to game me. Other have posted that they are annoyed by newsletters that aren't on Substack, but I wonder how much it will take in bloated features and capturing of attention will flip that feeling?
Substack needs to market itself like Shopify did in the early days. Now Shopify is suddenly realizing that B2B matters. It's fairly interested to compare ecosystems and business models. How does Substack further empower the individual in a way that others cannot or haven't done? It's decentralization, it's the entire opposite of centralization.
I feel human beings prefer centralization over decentralization, mainly because we like to have the number to call or somebody to complain about.
The only worry I have with substack is that the longer I stay, the stickier it will get and the harder it will be to leave and set up something independent (eg. Repost everything on a private blog).
It's all good today, but who knows what is behind the curve?
Thank you for sharing this - part of the “shrinking readership” issue seems to be that publishing has never understood how the role of the book and writing might change when the media ecosystem around it shifts (vs the days when a Charles Dickens triple-decker was the only entertainment other than public hangings). I don’t think many publishing houses are worried about “growing the market” for overall readers in an attention economy where everything competes with everything and Netflix’s declining subscriptions are blamed on Tiktok. My hunch is that the attention that Substack is stealing most regularly is from news publications, but long term it will be interesting if it can convert a non-fictional readership into a fictional one too. I’m less bothered (for now) about centralisation because it’s using that muscle to create paid readership and attention for writers in a world that’s devalued them for a long time.
right on !! i don’t know if your prognostications will hold true but substack has facilitated my writing / i struggled with self publishing my books then i struggled with trying to find a ‘real’ publisher for my next book (never did) now i publish once a week with a podcast feature have 104 subscribers 17 paid subscribers 200 page views on average and am having a lot of fun / i know those numbers are minuscule but as you point out it’s easily scalable / just keep doing good work and see what happens is my strategy / thanks for a great post
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.
That's a very interesting observation
I’ve noticed this observation certainly, but when I consider my own likelihood to join that trend I find myself hesitant. I’ve always wanted to write a blog, I feel like it wouldn’t be useless, etc. but I know some of the things I’d want to write about would come up the rest of my career (I’m currently a college student). The risk-reward just isn’t there for someone who isn’t established, wants to write on topics that touch politics and policy, and isn’t either completely left or somewhere right of centre.
Start small! Think of it like an intellectual scrapbook that you make for yourself first, not some audience of random internet people. You don't have to email out everything, or anything at all if you don't want. Post links, articles, data, etc. on things that you find interesting and offer a paragraph or two of reaction. As long as it's said with respect and humility, it's extremely unlikely you'll get canceled or fired.
Over time, you build up your sense of what you care about, what interests you, and what you're good at writing about. There are compounding effects to blogging over time, so the sooner you try it, the better it gets!
write whatever you're passionate about / that's the only way that you'll write well
Good point, I’ve noticed the same.
Does years of Substack Grow compound influence and brand ambassadors? Time will tell, hopefully there is a significant trickle-down effect.
The ownership economy doesn't have a well-established Middle class, can Substack be different? It needs to grow its product-marketing team to face this challenge, they will have be to shrewd while funding macro environment is challenging.
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."
Wow, Substack does let writers recommend other writers, just like a blog roll. It's down on the bottom with the other crap. I had never noticed. I think my personal built in ad blocker made all that stuff invisible.
The ownership economy in theory empowers the individual Creator, it's the complete opposite of "Centralization" which is what Ad-platforms did. I get what the OP is trying to say though. I think as you say though Will, there's so many niches that they overlap for each of us slightly differently.
The point is to pick a few you can tolerate. For me that might be Substack/LinkedIn combo, for others it might be something else. We will have to see how their Android app performs to get a clearer picture but there are some good signs.
My only worry is that content that's more emo, sentiment based and clickbait does tend to perform the best in more human based cross pollination hubs. But to each their own, enough niches to create a rainbow. We can't all be popular or profitable.
The problem becomes what is the life-cycle of such a platform? Like so many things on the internet, it may be a good stomping ground until it's not. How does Substack create a sustainable product?
Love this. I resonate on a gut level with the sense that something is growing here. My own experience with the platform looks something like this:
- 12 months ago: Started reading one Substack (the author relocated there for the liberty it afforded). Loved the lack of ads, the no-pressure sense of community, the weekly inbox dings to look forward to, the professional look.
- 6 months ago: Began a 10-month research grant (long story, won't get into that here).
- 3 months ago: Realized writing publicly would be a great way to supplement said research grant.
- And as of today I write weekly, read Glenn Greenwald AND Heather Cox Richardson and about 20 other Substacks.
And I feel mildly insulted when referred to as a "blogger".
Long live online writers.
The term "creator" also gives me indigestion.
Maybe that's just me.
Agree ... it's too godlike. But worse is "creative" as a noun.
What you take out of something makes it more valuable. You make a good point that without algorithms, Ads and typical incentive gimmicks, there is more "free space" and a blank canvas feeling.
Adoption of writers to readers does appear to be high which is a good sign. Important to feel that free-speech still exists somewhere.
I agree with the premise of the essay, and centralization on Substack overall is a wonderful thing. However, even if they can remain a neutral party platform, they are never completely safe. Domain registrars are under very strict regulation when it comes to censorship, but hosting providers are not. The largest hosting cloud provider, AWS, very much has their finger on the destruct button for any customer who steps outside the boundaries of what they consider acceptable use. Now consider all of the third party vendors or services beyond hosting that a company like Substack might use, which are required for business operations. Contracts these days often stipulate conditions open to interpretation that allow for easier termination of the relationship. These third parties could bury Substack in legal costs should Substack choose to sue before it would ever matter.
It's the one primary disadvantage to centralization. You become a target.
If anything undoes the Substack project it will be censorship of one kind or another. To date the only case I have heard of of someone being banned from the platform was for egregious plagarism, but time will tell. The fact there aren’t advertisers to answer to is a plus in that regard.
Also the fact that Substack allow you to back up your list is a plus. I’m hoping for the best here but I’m also backing up my work, and I say that as a writer who is in no way political. Which says something about the wider internet culture.
I have not checked out the app since I'm not an iOS user, but if I got into the habit of using the Android app, like I imagine I will, I think the broad range of niche content will be enough to engage me and influence my reading habits. That Substack has a diversity of voices and topics is in itself a kind of product-market fit. Although I'd suggest it will be in 2023 that Substack's "middle class" really emerges.
Good point, it’s still early days yet. Time moves differently here on the internet.
I hope so for our sake Thomas. Every app or platform has a life-cycle, sadly sometimes they are way too short. My main thing is how to time activity on them for maximum gains. I feel as if Substack product now allows Creators to get the max ROI in the shortest time.
My actual writing to tedious tangentially related nonsense ratio is higher on here than it has ever been.
That's probably a good thing!? I'd wager it means you have a safe space to truly express yourself.
Substack's controversy is actually good PR for it to attract a certain kind of readership and Influencer. Who would not want to be the platform for "Free speech" when it has been so mutilated in recent years. As the town square got beaten down, it finds new roots.
Growth will skyrocket when Google starts indexing and serving Substack pages as well.
(Just like what happened with Reddit in the past.)
Great article btw Erik!
Substack works because the business model is transparent- we give you the infrastructure to get paid subscribers for your writing and in return we take a slice. Simple. No ads, no mysterious algorithms, no Skinnerite strategies to manipulate you into maximising time on app (whether as a creator or as a consumer).
Under these conditions quality can thrive, rather than clickbait. Therefore substack attracts the best writers and becomes prestigious. Which mimetically reinforces itself. And so everyone wins, at least for now.
I’m quietly optimistic about it all- Lord knows I’ve made more money and reached a wider audience with stranger and less ‘optimised for engagement’ essays than I ever did as a blogger or direct newsletter sender.
It sounds like that a lot of it is the lack of algorithms. That's how Facebook and others started. They let users decide what to engage with. Then they wanted to make money, so in came the algorithms. Lyft got its start as the un-Uber with minimal algorithmic garbage and a simple pay structure, but then it had to make a profit and compete with Uber, so that was that. In fact, the original appeal of blogs was the lack of algorithms.
The algorithm revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Yes, 'online writer' is actually very good, and not at all pompous; and as a pointer to one's substack, to be able just say 'online writing @ whateveryoursubstackis.substack.com (I assume no such substack exists) is so nice and handy. There's some change happening in reading and writing, for certain.
I sometimes think what we're evolving towards is differing media serving differing cognitive architectures for reading and writing: I know some really great tweeters who are not really very good extended-form or long-form writers; now there's room for everyone - the aphorist (tweets); essayist (blogger/substacker); etc.
Lovely piece.
This post makes me sad, mainly because I'm afraid you might be right. One of my primary motivations for working on The Sample has been to create a network between readers and writers that can be tapped into by anyone, regardless of what app or publishing platform they're using. It is unclear if I'll be able to scale it and continue working on it full-time though.
IMO one of the biggest hindrances to decentralization efforts is that people who work on them often are too motivated by the tech or the idealogy, without focusing enough on the practical everyday benefits. The practical benefits of centralization are clear, as you've articulated; whereas it takes an enormous amount of effort just to stay even on ease-of-use with decentralized solutions (for example, all the effort I've put into supporting 1-click subscribes on The Sample...).
As such I've put a lot of thought into the "why" behind decentralization; is there something there that makes it really worth trying to fight against the hurricane as you say? Or should I just go work for Substack 🙂?
My current line of thinking is that the primary benefit of decentralization is that it enables experimentation. It's like the exploit vs. explore tradeoff, or in evolution the tension between optimizing for your current environment vs. being ready to adapt to new environments. I like the idea of anyone being able to experiment with new types of reading and writing experiences, not just people who work at Substack.
Take algorithmic recommendations for example: many people (and in particular, Substack) hate them; I personally think they can be a tool for good. The only reason I was even able to get The Sample off the ground is because lots of people still use a decentralized system for reading (email). If everyone exclusively used the Substack app for reading--which only supports Substack newsletters, RSS notwithstanding--The Sample wouldn't have been possible.
Whether or not adaptiveness/the ability to experiment is valuable enough to spend a career on, I don't know. My current line of thinking is that it's not really an either/or, rather there will always be centralized and decentralized systems coexisting to various degrees, and it's worth having people try to support both types of systems and let the optimal "overall system" emerge on its own. Since I like tinkering with different ways of doing things, I'll probably keep working on decentralized systems--they may never have as large of a direct impact as Substack and other centralized systems, but I'll be happy as long as I can make a living from it, and maybe if I come up with any good ideas I can convince larger platforms to adopt them 🙂.
This makes lots of sense honestly cause recently, I've been noticing that I'm wayyy more excited when my favorite substackers post a newsletter (ex. you, sasha) than when my favorite youtubers do. Theres something to be said about that sort of thing I think. Definitely can see substack being a new "cultural growth industry" thing like YouTube but for writers and that's super exciting!
*oops, I meant online writers, my bad
haha substackers is fine
Completely agreed. In the past I would click a link to a blog post, read the post and think it was interesting, and then probably never read that writer again. Now that approximately 100% of such posts have a convenient button to add the writer to my substack feed with one click, I will almost always do so and see all their subsequent posts. I have concerns about centralization, but I can’t deny that my behavior as a reader strongly contributes to it.
But Leaf do you think writing is the top of the funnel and podcasting or video could be the bottom of the funnel once you are more immersed? How does Substack continue its "Creator Stack" for freedom of expression?
What cross-pollination becomes in-app (an Android) will be a significant thing to watch.
Substack is what I have always wanted as a writer and a reader. It’s finally the social media for those who like to write and read!!!! Consider me a die-hard fan.
Couldn’t agree more. Hopefully they’ll keep building in this great foundation they have set up here.
Gosh, I hope you're right. The advantage of Substack is that it's goals are aligned with the goals of the writers. I worry that it will go the same way as a lot of previous platforms, though, because it'll become saturated with people who will devalue it. Perhaps the silo protects from that, I don't know.
I think you are right, the siloed town square is viable because the individual owns their own relationship and content. It's a small step in the history of UGC (user generated content). It becomes more viable as writers learn to do audio, podcasting and video, which appeals to a younger and more authentic hungry audience.
Yes, while that independence has existed for people who run their own websites, produce their own podcasts, etc., for a long time, the difference is that Substack also provides community. In theory, this gives us the best of both worlds. We'll see how things shake out as time goes on.
I think whether it continues to be good for writers mainly depends on how profitable the Substack business model proves to be, and whether it can grow and still maintain the ideals that it started with.
Creators if anyone know how to diversify their revenue streams, because anything can happen on platforms. Typically writers freelance, have a side gigs, and so forth so Substack can remain a growing theme on the side.
To go all-in on Substack though is seductive if your job as a journalist or freelancer has been disrupted somehow. If Substack made $9 million in 2021, it's not worth them doing a C round in the current VC environment where their valuation would be considerably reduced. Hopefully they have some run rate to continue to grow.
ROI on Substack compound over time, which means many amateur writers actually quit or give up before they would have experienced those longer-term rewards. Substack needs to find a way to persuade them somehow to stay and retain those would-be Middle class influencers. Rising competition, a crypto winter and consumers more leary to spend on subscriptions will make things interesting in 2023.
It seems that Substack has more in common with Shopify than Medium, where the platform made it easier to create and sell and took advantage of good timing. The downside is that the Shopification of e-commerce has turned me off to many brands using it, as it feels designed to game me. Other have posted that they are annoyed by newsletters that aren't on Substack, but I wonder how much it will take in bloated features and capturing of attention will flip that feeling?
Substack needs to market itself like Shopify did in the early days. Now Shopify is suddenly realizing that B2B matters. It's fairly interested to compare ecosystems and business models. How does Substack further empower the individual in a way that others cannot or haven't done? It's decentralization, it's the entire opposite of centralization.
I feel human beings prefer centralization over decentralization, mainly because we like to have the number to call or somebody to complain about.
The only worry I have with substack is that the longer I stay, the stickier it will get and the harder it will be to leave and set up something independent (eg. Repost everything on a private blog).
It's all good today, but who knows what is behind the curve?
Thank you for sharing this - part of the “shrinking readership” issue seems to be that publishing has never understood how the role of the book and writing might change when the media ecosystem around it shifts (vs the days when a Charles Dickens triple-decker was the only entertainment other than public hangings). I don’t think many publishing houses are worried about “growing the market” for overall readers in an attention economy where everything competes with everything and Netflix’s declining subscriptions are blamed on Tiktok. My hunch is that the attention that Substack is stealing most regularly is from news publications, but long term it will be interesting if it can convert a non-fictional readership into a fictional one too. I’m less bothered (for now) about centralisation because it’s using that muscle to create paid readership and attention for writers in a world that’s devalued them for a long time.
right on !! i don’t know if your prognostications will hold true but substack has facilitated my writing / i struggled with self publishing my books then i struggled with trying to find a ‘real’ publisher for my next book (never did) now i publish once a week with a podcast feature have 104 subscribers 17 paid subscribers 200 page views on average and am having a lot of fun / i know those numbers are minuscule but as you point out it’s easily scalable / just keep doing good work and see what happens is my strategy / thanks for a great post