You May Not Own Your Email List Anymore
On Substack, Medium, and possibly other platforms soon
Brought to you by SparkLoop* — the #1 newsletter recommendation engine (for free)
My Medium friends can read this story over there as well.
You might not actually own your email list anymore. Not in the way you thought you did.
Every creator-growth-guru on the internet (me included) told you, you “own your list”.
“Emails are yours.” And yet, if you’re publishing on Substack, Medium, or even considering these platforms, there’s a quiet shift happening. One you might not see unless you really go looking.
Your list is still there… technically. But it may not be reachable as before.
Hidden Shift Away From Email
The point of building a list was to reach people, right?
Simple idea: you collect email addresses, you send newsletters, and people read them, sometimes even reply. It felt like a direct line. And it is.
But here’s the twist: Some platforms are slowly severing that line, or at least rerouting it through their own systems.
Without really telling us about it.
Subscribers Don’t Have Emails
Until recently, when someone followed you on Medium and opted into your newsletter (subscribed, in other words), you could go to your dashboard, click “Subscribers,” and boom, you see the email addresses.
You could export them. Maybe import them into your own system. You were in control. Mostly.
Not anymore.
Now, when you view your subscriber list, those emails are hidden behind asterisks: ******@******.com.
What you have is a number, not a list. Medium seems to be moving toward a closed-loop system, where your “newsletter” lives in their app, their inbox, their notifications. Not yours.
People can get email notifications if they want. But they have to opt in, and it’s not the default anymore. The result? A lot of creators are gaining subscribers… but losing access.
Your writing lives inside Medium, and now your audience kind of does too.
The #1 Newsletter Platform That’s Moving Beyond Email?
At least Substack still gives you email addresses. Right?
Yes. Sort of. But there’s fine print.
Buried inside your subscriber export (csv), there’s a quiet column labeled something like:
“Email disabled: TRUE / FALSE.”
If you’ve never looked, you’ve never noticed it.
Substack has been pushing users toward its app for quite a long time now, with louder notifications, faster comment access, and a social feed vibe (Substack Notes).
Many readers are choosing in-app notifications instead of emails.
That means you could have 5,000 subscribers, but only 3,000 of them receive emails. The other 2,000 are basically following you inside Substack’s walled garden.
Great for platform engagement. Less great if you ever want to take your show on the road.
And hey, I get it. Substack wants their writers and readers to stay on their platform, in their ecosystem. I also love the app and the in-app notifications much more than getting emails.
But that comes at a price.
Want to make your phone unique?
Try the Formless App Icons pack for iOS*!
What This Means for Creators
None of this is evil.
It’s just what happens when platforms grow up. They shift from “helping you reach your audience” to “helping your audience stay here.”
The incentives are obvious:
More in-app activity = better engagement metrics.
Better engagement = better monetization.
Closed loops = less platform leakage.
Walled garden = harder to move to the competition
But for us, the writers, this introduces a new kind of lock-in. You might think you’re just using a platform to distribute your content. But over time, the platform is using us to centralize our audience. Slowly. Mostly invisibly. And effectively.
Email Is Being Replaced (Without Consent)
What’s a bit scary is: readers don’t even realize it.
Substack readers love the app because it feels less like email and more like a bloggy feed. I love it.
Medium readers enjoy clapping and commenting inside the ecosystem without needing another inbox ping. I do love the Medium app as well.
No one’s explicitly saying, “I don’t want your emails anymore.” But by defaulting to in-app notifications, we’re obscuring email options and that’s essentially the new default.
It’s opt-out dressed up as convenience.
And as a result, when you decide to take your newsletter somewhere else (ConvertKit, Ghost, Beehiiv), you may find that your audience doesn’t come with you.
Not because they don’t like you.
Not because they’re mad.
But because they don’t even realize you left.
They’re still waiting for the next Substack notification to pop up.
Still checking Medium’s little bell icon.
Still unaware that your actual newsletter now lives somewhere else.
Or worse… you can’t even export their email addresses anymore. And not take them with you at all.
What’s Ownership
This isn’t to say Substack or Medium are bad places to publish. Quite the opposite. They’re polished, powerful, and reader-friendly. They help you grow. They help you earn.
I run my business on these two platforms.
But the phrase “you own your list” is becoming more of a slogan than a truth.
If a third of your list doesn’t receive emails anymore (and don’t expect them)…
If another third can’t be exported (because their hidden)…
And if the last third stops opening because they’re trained to engage in-app…
Do you really own your list? Or do you just rent access on good terms?
What To Do About It
Check your exports.
Seriously. On Substack, export your subscribers and look at how many have FALSE in the email opt-in column. For me, it’s none at all right now. So maybe, this isn’t all that bad, actually. But I still worry about the future here. On Medium, it’s already obvious. All my subscribers from the past few months are hidden. No way to export the addresses.
Start capturing emails independently.
It might be worth driving your readers to another email newsletter platform. Whether it’s ConvertKit, Beehiiv, Gumroad, Buttondown, or Notion forms duct-taped to Zapier, start collecting emails outside of Substack and Medium. Even if it’s just a few at a time. I use Gumroad for this purpose.
Communicate clearly.
Let your audience know how to stay connected. If you move platforms, tell them inside the app and via email if possible. Tell them multiple times. Don’t assume they’ll notice your absence.
Think long-term.
Substack and Medium might be your home base now. They’re mine. But things change. Platform strategies change. People get acquired. Features disappear. Algorithms frown. Always keep one eye on the exit door. It’s not a knock on the platform. I get why they’re doing it. It’s a safety measure for us.
The Bottom Line
It’s easy to think, “I’ll worry about this later.”
But when “later” comes, and you’re trying to port 10,000 followers to your own system… you’ll wish you worried sooner.
The shift from email to in-app is subtle. It’s not a platform email saying “We’re taking your list.” It’s a checkbox in a setting, a bell icon instead of an inbox, asterisks in place of addresses.
And just like that, your subscriber list becomes a follower count.
A number.
Nothing more.
*this is an affiliate or SparkLoop* partner link. I’ll get a commission if you decide to sign up.
Thanks for writing this. Been idly wondering when Substack was going to begin its heel turn to platform lockin.
Was guessing g early next year, but I guess those folks who invested $100 mil want a return sooner than later.
Great post. It's something I've been noticing in the last year...deliver rates keep going down...and basically the stats just don't seem to be very accurate. Time to think about integrating other platforms