Substack Blog

> This notes thing looks like an attempt to pivot to an advertising based business model It's not. Substack is very clear about that. https://on.substack.com/p/notes-faq "The ultimate goal on Substack is to convert casual readers into paying subscribers. Because the Substack network runs on paid subscriptions, writers are rewarded for respecting the trust and attention of their audiences, not exploiting it like with ad-based social media." "While Notes may look similar to social media feeds, the key difference is in what you don’t see. The Substack network runs on paid subscriptions, not ads. It’s social media with a heart transplant."

This is probably the best possible marketing (via Streisand Effect) that Substack could hope for. The Hacker News posts about Notes (https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes) haven't gotten any traction.

I help with podcasts at Substack. Substack is a podcast-hosting platform like the others you describe (although in my biased opinion we have a number of other great features that set us apart). Most of the podcasts on Substack are hosted and distributed by Substack. A few Substack podcasts do point back at other platforms, but this isn't the norm. Writers can embed youtube videos in their posts. When they do, those are hosted on youtube. However, Substack also has our own hosted videos (see https://on.substack.com/p/video-on-substack).

It's a tricky problem indeed, this one regarding their app, although not a surprising one. Last month, Hamish McKenzie (cofounder) wrote[1] that “the trend that Substack is part of is not a newsletter trend, or even the much-hyped creator economy”. So, an app that distance subscribers from e-mail was expected. Btw, giving a special address would increase the lock-in, IMHO. The newsletter owner would be dependent of Substacks benevolence forever. As I wrote, I recognize Substack as a force for good, but there are cracks in their promise and considering it's a VC-backed startup, things only tend to get worse in the long run. [1] https://on.substack.com/p/please-stop-calling-it-the-newsletter

I think substack is a safe bet for your case, the only prohibition is on porn and credible threats, and promoting illegal activities. See their content guidelines [0] and a blog on their philosophy of hands-off moderation, letting readers choose who they follow [1]. They don't algorithmically recommend articles, so they don't have to place the same filters and automated "shadow banning" that other platforms perform. [0] https://substack.com/content [1] https://on.substack.com/p/substacks-view-of-content-moderation

We definitely care a lot about about freedom of the press, and have written a bunch about it at e.g. https://on.substack.com/p/society-has-a-trust-problem-more I think the Substack model gives us a bunch of advantages here: readers are choosing to subscribe to writers they trust, and who they then have a direct relationship with. I don't think that Apple is likely to try to police that too heavily, and if they do there is always web and email that exists as a fallback.

From the Substack-related interviews/content I've consumed, it seems like the company is more concerned with tools/support [0] [1] for its creators, before it worries about consumer growth. The idea is that once you have an excess of supply (writers), who are all bringing in their own readers, it's easier to connect the dots for readers to other publications. Whereas if your reader demand outweighs supply, people will not see any value from sticking around. As a writer on the platform[2] itself, I think the general tools/support for the non-Top 20 creators leaves a ton to be desired, so would love to see them step it up in a number of ways if they're really trying to get behind the average writer. [0] https://on.substack.com/p/announcing-the-next-substack-fellowship [1]https://on.substack.com/p/legal-support-for-substack-writers [2]https://pausebutton.substack.com/

It seems to me that once you are an established writer you can go to substack and get something worthwhile out of it, but otherwise - let's read this suggestion on how to grow your audience https://on.substack.com/p/getting-your-first-100-signups I guess this is useful if there is no difference between your professional and non-professional personas, then you can get a lot of people reading you from linkedIn that are your professional connections and interested in what you write because you write about your professional interests. Or if you are a naturally convivial person who has done nothing but expanded their supply of friends from high school on. Or who has the free time to go to social events and socialize. I'm writing on Medium https://medium.com/luminasticity because it seems to have an understandable way of building an audience that does not require you to do much other than write (although there is a detestable social aspect to it as well), it certainly isn't going great and it has taken 3 months to build 97 followers, most days I get only 4 or 5 views with every now and then a large amount for no discernible reason (by large I tend to mean 70 views), pretty much everything I write gets less than 100 views - whether a short funny piece about how suggestions by computers tend to be useless if you are actually competent [Suggestions from Idiots](https://medium.com/p/6b023acc30ae ) to a multi-story time travel narrative https://medium.com/p/adb84f467d8a with a…

I think you're wrong (I'm ignoring the inflammatory rhetoric and taking the core of your argument in good faith). The good thing about substack compared to most centralized apps is that writers maintain control over their audience address list. This aligns incentives since leaving is possible. It makes them more of an actual software platform for their writers which is a good thing imo. As long as this remains true, the risk is low. It’s probably the best outcome you can realistically get on the non-urbit web outside of niche providers like ghost which have their own trade-offs. I suspect the hardest thing for substack will be the moderation position they find themselves in. If they do anything to try to help increase readership (even if they don't) they will eventually find themselves in the same difficult situations as every other platform, this is just an unavoidable fact of being a centralized service with this power and capability (and choosing who you will not allow as customers is a form of substack's speech). Having this responsibility is not easy and with continued success and scale becomes messy. This (imo) just isn't something that can be solved by a centralized system effectively, even though it sounds like they'll do the best the can: https://on.substack.com/p/substacks-view-of-content-moderation

The article we're commenting on lists several examples of the dynamic and it aligns with my personal experience offline and online. There are also stats like these: https://on.substack.com/p/the-substack-ai-report "Publishers 45 and over were more likely to use AI than those under 45." I can, of course, dig up more supporting data, but that is not as important to me as making sense of what I'm actually seeing. https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2025/09/17/views-of-ais-impact-on-… "Younger Americans are generally more likely than older Americans to think the increased use of AI will worsen human abilities."

I noticed this guy’s post after seeing him comment on a similar post today: https://on.substack.com/p/boomerang/comment/16218081 I thought it was useful to point out because it highlights the way that overly positive messaging comes off to people who aren’t seeing success with your tools. I don’t know the solution to this problem, but I think he raises some very valid points about getting too high on your own supply.

Yeah, I think @dang should change this link to the official announcement at https://on.substack.com/p/notes

Substack just releases a Twitter competitor: https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes

Two fold: - A significant fraction of Substacks growth has been popular Twitter users monetising their audience. Twitter should have build Substack, I think it's obvious that they will be launching an equivalent product as they become revenue focused. - Substack just launched "Substack Notes" which looks like a mini Twitter: https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes

They're adding a Twitter-like feature. https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes

Yes -- check out this announcement: https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes

Were it not for Twitter blocking Substack links I likely never would have heard of Notes[1], and I'm even someone that knows about/likes Substack. This feels like another weird own goal by Elon/Twitter that's giving quite a bit more amplification to a competitive product than if they'd done nothing[2]. [1] https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Given the timing, this may be due to Substack's announcement of their new Notes feature. (Or it may be Musk just being Musk.) https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes

Perhaps this is because Substack is now competing with Twitter through Substack Notes: https://twitter.com/SubstackInc/status/1643630250931232768 https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes

Elon's decision is dumb, but SubStack is expanding it's use case: https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes

Substack just launched its Twitter competitor, called Notes: https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes

They added comments, chat, an app for reading, sections. There is a lot happening in Substack core product. Edit: this looks like a good list for my standards: https://on.substack.com/p/product-news-dispatch-nov-22 And Substack discoverability is becoming a big thing for writers. I know the impact from a lot of anedoctes.

No. Medium is bloated trash with dark patterns; Substack has always loaded quickly for me and has transparent monetization. I expect this to remain the case because they do cool things like provide legal support for their customers https://on.substack.com/p/legal-support-for-substack-writers

Substack exists because someone launched a very different business model than Medium. They also have a program where they pay prominent people advances to switch (https://on.substack.com/p/why-we-pay-writers). Greenwald's Medium is still up. He just never really used it. https://medium.com/@ggreenwald/almost-nobody-reads-these-posts-35ab88d…

I think an ongoing, robust RSS ecosystem is a major thorn in the side of any substack-like business model. Their target consumer (affluent/intellectual enough to pay for access to ideas) has access to a far wider variety of arguably better content if they're willing to build up a set of RSS feeds. Maybe there's room to build a company on top of the RSS ecosystem, but it's difficult when free, feature-rich, and high quality alternatives exist. FWIW, it does seem like Substack is trying to attack this space: https://on.substack.com/p/new-reader-homepage. However, as a publisher/bundler of paid RSS feeds, they have a big conflict of interest in offering an RSS reader. Like Spotify and their "exclusive" podcasts, they have an incentive to push bland content and obscure the rich niches that make the RSS ecosystem actually-valuable.

Substack's founders have been vocal about supporting free speech[0]. So it makes sense to me why they wouldn't want people holding the exact opposite views to the point of quitting. [0] https://on.substack.com/p/substacks-view-of-content-moderation

https://on.substack.com/p/substackapp https://apps.apple.com/de/app/substack-reader/id1581650857?l=en

I seem to recall reading "You either die an MVP or live long enough to build content moderation" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28684250 I hope substack can really change the game here because their business model delivers content you paid to receive rather than competing for your attention. More on that here: https://on.substack.com/p/substacks-view-of-content-moderation

>makes me think this author has thought a lot about materials and buildings but not actually built anything Here's an interview with the author: https://on.substack.com/p/what-to-read-construction-physics and his LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-potter-6a082150 Anything's possible, of course, but he does seem to have the right credentials and experience for the subject matter.

Check out Substack, they're working on exactly this: https://on.substack.com/p/a-better-future-for-news