Why Substack Needs More Than Paid Subscriptions to Survive

And what could that be?

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Substack has done a pretty good job convincing writers that email newsletters are sexy again.

They’ve built a great publishing platform, added podcast hosting & a video feed, rolled out chat, recommendations, crossposts and, most importantly, Notes, and given thousands of writers a way to charge directly for their work.

But the current model is painfully binary.

You’re either free, or you’re on a monthly/annual subscription. That’s it.

And the problem is the world has subscription fatigue. I do.

Readers already pay for Netflix, Spotify, the gym, their yoga app, and maybe even their dog’s organic meal plan. Add ten different newsletters to that? Nobody’s subscribing to infinity.

The internet isn’t built on one revenue model. It’s built on a messy cocktail of subscriptions, ads, one-offs, sponsors, tips, and everything in between.

So what else could Substack be doing?

Let’s break down four realistic Substack monetization options, with their upsides and downsides.

I have 4 options to go through.

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