I wrote about this a while back too. It's a platform just like the others. And while everyone coming here is thankful it's not the other ones, the only way for it to grow is for more people to migrate from other places. Meaning the platform will inevitably change. The golden era will come to an end like it does for every platform we've witness come to market. It's important for creators to understand what these platforms stand for -- it's traffic.
Good analysis, though I think Medium is finished in terms of any significant income for the great majority of writers since changes made there in January. It is a real shame that there is not a platform owned and run by writers - it would need a lot of backing, technical expertise and very deep pockets!😀
I think Medium is actually in the process of reinventing themselves a bit and making a lot better, just not for the AI crap and low quality writing. But for good writing, readers, and, most importantly, subscribers which they will focus a lot more on.
Yes i read that. I don’t agree with everything. Some statements are false. But overall the point is valid. Obviously Substack is trying to grow their ecosystem with all the things they do and add. Some of those feature help us grow an audience. Some don’t. There’s always a tradeoff.
First, I like your article. Much of it is valid and it's a great read. I don't agree with everything because I think some things are not really only an issue on/with Substack but with most platforms.
In general, I think we have to make tradeoffs with any platform, in different ways. Some are easy and free, some are complex and paid, some are open source, others are closed, some are good for making money, others are great to get traction or search engine traffic. Hardly any platform is good at all those things.
What I think is false in your article:
1. You write: “subscribers who use the app are much more likely to share, like, comment on, or restack your work than before they installed the app” when you literally cannot do those activities outside of their app. Make it make sense. — this isn't true. You can do all these things on the web and on the mobile web as well. No need for the app. But the app offers a better experience just like with every other social media app. You can use Twitter on mobile web only. But the app just works better.
2. They get your audience to opt out of your emails
Once they’ve got YOUR fan in THEIR app, Substack encourages them to enable something called “smart notifications” which essentially removes this person from your email list.
Instead, your reader will get push notifications in the Substack app when you publish. Should you decide to leave Substack, you’ll have a bunch of readers who have opted out of your email list who you will either need to re-establish email permission with or who you’ll lose altogether. — This is also not true. Yes, they want you to read in the app, but that doesn't opt readers out of email. And when you export your email list, all members will still be on it, no matter what they selected in the smart notification settings. But I do think some will be confused when they get emails again once you moved from Substack to another platform and therefore send only emails again. So it can be a problem, that's true.
3. So, by now, you know Substack’s falling down on their promise to get you paid subscribers and you want to promote your own paid subscription. Wait just a minute…you can’t! Substack’s own content guidelines state “Substack is intended for high quality editorial content, not conventional email marketing.” — This is partly true. They have this in their content guidelines. But it is explained further. They only disallow content which primary focus is to advertise external products or services, etc. So only if you just do that, and nothing else. But if you still provide valuable content, you can, of course, market your own stuff, and also incorporate other income streams. I actually mainly do this. I don't rely on paid subscriptions. All of my stuff is free to read on Substack. I send readers to other revenue streams. And most writers I know do that.
In general, it is good to be aware of the flaws and bugs on any platform. Substack is no different. And it's also good to have another home for your work, preferably an open source, independent one like Ghost or WordPress.org. But that statement is true for many platforms, not just Substack.
I do agree with what you write about recommendations and Notes, though. Recommendations and all the forced stuff is annoying. And Notes are social media, so they mainly benefit Substack. They can drive subscribers, but less so than followers. I still like that Notes is not plastered with ads and sponsored content all over like every other social media platform, though.
That's it.
I like your Ghost site by the way. Looks great. Ghost is also a great platform. I've always been more of a WordPress guy, but like what Ghost has to offer.
By app, i mean both web and mobile app. The website is an app. It’s not your own website, it’s their web app. This has been confusing for non-tech people so I will update to clarify.
Re: the email unsubscribes. The list you export says “unsubscribed from email” = true/false so some of your audience will be unsubscribed. Try an export and let me know what you see
I see. When you mean both mobile web app and mobile app compared to email then of course you can’t do these things inside an email client. For obvious reasons. It’s just not possible. I don’t think that’s what the Substack founder meant though. He meant mobile app compared to web. And in that case his statement was not wrong.
when I export emails there is no unsubscribed column in the csv. There is an email disabled column. But that’s different. It just means notifications are disabled. But they can’t unsubscribe or opt out of email because those smart notifications do fail sometimes and then the issues still come via mail instead. Which wouldn’t be possible or allowed in an opt out setting.
Lastly, of course these cases where someone got banned are unfortunate. I don’t know the circumstances here. But that’s also not an exclusive Substack problem is it? I know many cases where people got banned on Wordpress. And that’s pretty open source and independent. But they do have their terms as well. And can ban accounts. So does ghost. I don’t know any cases here personally but ghost has terms and content guidelines. And they also mention marketing as a factor here. Ghost wants you to use their own subscriptions service just like Substack does. Which is understandable. And ghost can close your account just as easily.
The point re: the apps (cross platform) is that those interactions are not chosen by you. Rather than you being able to control your brand and your call to actions, their app (again Substack as a cross channel platform) is prioritized.
Email disabled means unsubscribed. It’s a grey area but if someone disables email, they dont want emails. That means unsubscribed in my book.
Lastly it’s true any platform or hosting provider can ban you but none of them have a rule about using email to market and sale. Only Substack does that
Truth on that one Burk. It happens to every platform. I'm watching so many in denial, thinking this is the place. But coming from Gen X, I've watched all the growth of all the platforms. And the writing is already on the real for this one that it'll go the same direction the rest of the social platforms did. As you said, ride the wave. Enjoy it while it's like this.
This is scary, as i’m kinda just getting started, and have not even monetized yet, but yes. Downloading my list is the best way to make myself less prone to losing my readers. Thanks for sharing.
I sometimes wonder if a cooperative model might work better for tech platforms. One where the platform is co-owned with creators and artists. Not sure exactly how it would work and how you would get it off the ground. But then again, anything is possible with guerilla marketing these days, especially if it becomes an underground movement.
I was thinking about this the other day!!! After listening to Chris and Hamish on How I Built This (great episode). The only constant is changed but it seems like their values and vision are pretty firm. Hopefully any profitable shifts will stay aligned to the original intent!!
In one of my free publications there are hours of video and gigabytes of images, all hosted for free. It costs Substack a lot to store it all and I don’t pay.
That’s kind of crazy. I reckon that will be the first thing to change.
Your article makes a lot of sense - the relationship between creator and platform will always be a pro-parasitic one. The biggest advantage seems to be that your content nestles alongside other related pieces which in turn reduces friction on behalf of the consumer, but comes with the downside that your content nestles alongside other related pieces.
With this in mind would you recommend a cross platform approach- posting the same content on different platforms? If so which platforms would you recommend?
Yes, definitely crosspost. That’s always smart. I use Medium. And I think everybody should crosspost to Medium because it is a different system and you can make money there. If you can, it is also not a bad idea to cross post to a WordPress or Ghost blog.
Burk, what are your thoughts on Ghost? I've been debating it recently, does it have any real advantages over other alternatives or just self hosting my own blog/news site?
I wrote about this a while back too. It's a platform just like the others. And while everyone coming here is thankful it's not the other ones, the only way for it to grow is for more people to migrate from other places. Meaning the platform will inevitably change. The golden era will come to an end like it does for every platform we've witness come to market. It's important for creators to understand what these platforms stand for -- it's traffic.
Enshittification is definitely coming. No telling exactly when, but eventually.
Interesting and inevitable, as you say. For now, I'll continue to connect, engage, and enjoy - when the changes come, I'll assess then!
Good analysis, though I think Medium is finished in terms of any significant income for the great majority of writers since changes made there in January. It is a real shame that there is not a platform owned and run by writers - it would need a lot of backing, technical expertise and very deep pockets!😀
I disagree.
I think Medium is actually in the process of reinventing themselves a bit and making a lot better, just not for the AI crap and low quality writing. But for good writing, readers, and, most importantly, subscribers which they will focus a lot more on.
Lex Roman, creator of Journalists Pay Themselves, has written about this too.
"How Substack steals your audience and your revenue—They're not just bad for humanity. They're bad for business."
https://journalistspaythemselves.com/p/how-substack-steals-your-audience-and-your-revenue
Yes i read that. I don’t agree with everything. Some statements are false. But overall the point is valid. Obviously Substack is trying to grow their ecosystem with all the things they do and add. Some of those feature help us grow an audience. Some don’t. There’s always a tradeoff.
What’s false? Go ahead and call it out.
First, I like your article. Much of it is valid and it's a great read. I don't agree with everything because I think some things are not really only an issue on/with Substack but with most platforms.
In general, I think we have to make tradeoffs with any platform, in different ways. Some are easy and free, some are complex and paid, some are open source, others are closed, some are good for making money, others are great to get traction or search engine traffic. Hardly any platform is good at all those things.
What I think is false in your article:
1. You write: “subscribers who use the app are much more likely to share, like, comment on, or restack your work than before they installed the app” when you literally cannot do those activities outside of their app. Make it make sense. — this isn't true. You can do all these things on the web and on the mobile web as well. No need for the app. But the app offers a better experience just like with every other social media app. You can use Twitter on mobile web only. But the app just works better.
2. They get your audience to opt out of your emails
Once they’ve got YOUR fan in THEIR app, Substack encourages them to enable something called “smart notifications” which essentially removes this person from your email list.
Instead, your reader will get push notifications in the Substack app when you publish. Should you decide to leave Substack, you’ll have a bunch of readers who have opted out of your email list who you will either need to re-establish email permission with or who you’ll lose altogether. — This is also not true. Yes, they want you to read in the app, but that doesn't opt readers out of email. And when you export your email list, all members will still be on it, no matter what they selected in the smart notification settings. But I do think some will be confused when they get emails again once you moved from Substack to another platform and therefore send only emails again. So it can be a problem, that's true.
3. So, by now, you know Substack’s falling down on their promise to get you paid subscribers and you want to promote your own paid subscription. Wait just a minute…you can’t! Substack’s own content guidelines state “Substack is intended for high quality editorial content, not conventional email marketing.” — This is partly true. They have this in their content guidelines. But it is explained further. They only disallow content which primary focus is to advertise external products or services, etc. So only if you just do that, and nothing else. But if you still provide valuable content, you can, of course, market your own stuff, and also incorporate other income streams. I actually mainly do this. I don't rely on paid subscriptions. All of my stuff is free to read on Substack. I send readers to other revenue streams. And most writers I know do that.
In general, it is good to be aware of the flaws and bugs on any platform. Substack is no different. And it's also good to have another home for your work, preferably an open source, independent one like Ghost or WordPress.org. But that statement is true for many platforms, not just Substack.
I do agree with what you write about recommendations and Notes, though. Recommendations and all the forced stuff is annoying. And Notes are social media, so they mainly benefit Substack. They can drive subscribers, but less so than followers. I still like that Notes is not plastered with ads and sponsored content all over like every other social media platform, though.
That's it.
I like your Ghost site by the way. Looks great. Ghost is also a great platform. I've always been more of a WordPress guy, but like what Ghost has to offer.
By app, i mean both web and mobile app. The website is an app. It’s not your own website, it’s their web app. This has been confusing for non-tech people so I will update to clarify.
Re: the email unsubscribes. The list you export says “unsubscribed from email” = true/false so some of your audience will be unsubscribed. Try an export and let me know what you see
Re: marketing and editorial. Check out this post from someone who just got banned. https://medium.com/write-a-catalyst/substack-banned-my-newsletter-without-warning-heres-what-you-should-know-9793aa8045fe
I see. When you mean both mobile web app and mobile app compared to email then of course you can’t do these things inside an email client. For obvious reasons. It’s just not possible. I don’t think that’s what the Substack founder meant though. He meant mobile app compared to web. And in that case his statement was not wrong.
when I export emails there is no unsubscribed column in the csv. There is an email disabled column. But that’s different. It just means notifications are disabled. But they can’t unsubscribe or opt out of email because those smart notifications do fail sometimes and then the issues still come via mail instead. Which wouldn’t be possible or allowed in an opt out setting.
Lastly, of course these cases where someone got banned are unfortunate. I don’t know the circumstances here. But that’s also not an exclusive Substack problem is it? I know many cases where people got banned on Wordpress. And that’s pretty open source and independent. But they do have their terms as well. And can ban accounts. So does ghost. I don’t know any cases here personally but ghost has terms and content guidelines. And they also mention marketing as a factor here. Ghost wants you to use their own subscriptions service just like Substack does. Which is understandable. And ghost can close your account just as easily.
The point re: the apps (cross platform) is that those interactions are not chosen by you. Rather than you being able to control your brand and your call to actions, their app (again Substack as a cross channel platform) is prioritized.
Email disabled means unsubscribed. It’s a grey area but if someone disables email, they dont want emails. That means unsubscribed in my book.
Lastly it’s true any platform or hosting provider can ban you but none of them have a rule about using email to market and sale. Only Substack does that
Always smart to decouple from a platform eventually. Make sure to back those lists up!
Truth on that one Burk. It happens to every platform. I'm watching so many in denial, thinking this is the place. But coming from Gen X, I've watched all the growth of all the platforms. And the writing is already on the real for this one that it'll go the same direction the rest of the social platforms did. As you said, ride the wave. Enjoy it while it's like this.
This is scary, as i’m kinda just getting started, and have not even monetized yet, but yes. Downloading my list is the best way to make myself less prone to losing my readers. Thanks for sharing.
This is the first realistic post about Substack growth I’ve read since joining the platform. Thank you, and congrats on the amazing work you’re doing.
I sometimes wonder if a cooperative model might work better for tech platforms. One where the platform is co-owned with creators and artists. Not sure exactly how it would work and how you would get it off the ground. But then again, anything is possible with guerilla marketing these days, especially if it becomes an underground movement.
I was thinking about this the other day!!! After listening to Chris and Hamish on How I Built This (great episode). The only constant is changed but it seems like their values and vision are pretty firm. Hopefully any profitable shifts will stay aligned to the original intent!!
In one of my free publications there are hours of video and gigabytes of images, all hosted for free. It costs Substack a lot to store it all and I don’t pay.
That’s kind of crazy. I reckon that will be the first thing to change.
Your article makes a lot of sense - the relationship between creator and platform will always be a pro-parasitic one. The biggest advantage seems to be that your content nestles alongside other related pieces which in turn reduces friction on behalf of the consumer, but comes with the downside that your content nestles alongside other related pieces.
With this in mind would you recommend a cross platform approach- posting the same content on different platforms? If so which platforms would you recommend?
Yes, definitely crosspost. That’s always smart. I use Medium. And I think everybody should crosspost to Medium because it is a different system and you can make money there. If you can, it is also not a bad idea to cross post to a WordPress or Ghost blog.
That's why even though I thought of deleting my blogger site, last minute, I listened to my conscience and decided to keep it
Seems like we’re on the same page today! Good stuff.
Burk, what are your thoughts on Ghost? I've been debating it recently, does it have any real advantages over other alternatives or just self hosting my own blog/news site?
It’s open source. It’s independent. You can host your blog there. And if you know your way around tech a bit you can even use it for free.