State of the Newsletter #10
A life beyond Substack and reasons to migrate
UPDATE: Please visit www.whatscuration.com and sign up there to receive emails starting January 2, 2023 via Ghost. If you have signed up via Substack during Christmas break, you will be migrated automatically. No need to unsubscribe.
Hey folks,
I’ll be on winter break till Jan 3, so we’re having an advance State of the Newsletter. This is a long, yet important one: to other writers and readers, so I hope you take the time to read it. Writers, read on, while readers can skip down to their section afterward.
The broad theme is that I’m becoming unhappy with Substack and I am *considering* migrating to another platform sometime in 2023.
Why should writers consider leaving Substack?
The steady introduction of a walled garden.1 People are encouraged to call a publication a ‘Stack’ instead of a newsletter (distancing between the actual product and the brand name).
They meant to say “create a newsletter on Substack”. But of course, you knew that, didn’t you? Source The proprietary Substack app for iOS and Android app is essentially Google Reader or a glorified RSS reader. The introduction of Chat, a social discussion thread that necessitates the —you guessed it— Substack app in order to have a social media-styled conversation with the author and other readers.
Chat will eventually come to the browser as well, but at that point, is it any longer a newsletter or a social media clone?
The system forces writers to adapt or suffer from fear of missing out (FOMO). If people wanted to connect with me, do so on LinkedIn or just use the comments section or reply to the email.
Posts can now be authored from the app, meaning an additional layer of friction for people who want to leave (but seriously, if you live on your phone all the time that you write drafts for your newsletter on it, that may require some honest introspection about your device usage).
The payment system is all-or-nothing: Substack uses a revenue-sharing model: 10% of all your paid subs go to Substack to develop their platform (and another 3% to Stripe for processing your payment). Some say that’s quite steep, and if you are unhappy with Substack (for reasons2), the dynamic is flipped on its head—you are now on a platform that you are becoming increasingly disillusioned with and you are taking a cut to keep them alive. The way it works is simple:
Pay Nikhil monthly (needs a monthly commitment of X dollars)
Pay Nikhil annually (needs a yearly commitment upfront)
There is no option for a reader to pay as they go. If someone REALLY dug one of my essays, or track selections, there is no native subscription tier/tip system to enable them to do so. I have to use Ko-fi or another system to capitalize on those few dollars.
If you read 20 newsletters, you can’t possibly do monthly or annual subscriptions for all of them. Therein lies the rub.
Introduction of what I view as cash grabs: Every unpaid writer on this platform is a freeloader in Substack’s eyes. You ain’t charging, and so Substack ain’t getting that 10% platform fee. Worse still? If you have 1000s of free subscribers and haven’t turned on paid subs. That’s potentially thousands of dollars that’s on the table that Substack is losing out on. So they introduce another “helpful” feature: Boost. Are you a shy writer with paid subs enabled who can’t straight up ask the reader to pay or to take a hike? No worries—Boost will use some proprietary AI voodoo to segment your most engaged audience and email them periodic discounted subscription offers. Of course, authors have the chance to have that disabled (I have), but it shows signs of a deeper issue.
All the necessary details are omitted. What is the periodicity of these emails sent on our behalf? How steep is the discount? Can we review the copy on those emails? Nope, nope, and nope. Just trust Substack.
The big players are put on pedestals; the smaller ones languish in obscurity:
I’ve been getting the feeling recently that Substack is blurring the lines between the roles of being a platform and becoming a publication. I think the top-paid publications on Substack are bandied about at every possible opportunity to ram home the point that these folks “quit their jobs and founded their media empires on Substack3”. Forgive my frustration here, but I’ve had strategy calls with a few clients, and “getting more paid subs” was the pain point every👏🏽 single👏🏽 time 👏🏽.
If the discovery functionality is reduced, there’s a lesser incentive in the in-built Recommendations feature. Plus, the recommendations page is awkwardly placed, so it’s not like your newsletter is blasted to a reader on the recommender’s newsletter. In this case, it makes more sense for you to adopt a different platform and figure out the advertising part yourself.
Discovering new folks to collaborate with has become nigh impossible. Before, visiting the Discover page and selecting the Free list would allow you to check up to 150 newsletters on the leaderboard. That’s why I’d advertise What’s Curation? as a top 100 music newsletter—because I counted! Now, it’s limited to 25. These 25 must have hundreds, if not 1000s of subs. They’re not going to waste their time on me. I’ve lost access to the little folks, those who would love to add a few more eyeballs to their lovely writing. If it were not for that leaderboard, I would have never stumbled across some of my most loyal subscribers, who are my dear friends now. It’s a damn shame and I have no idea how we’re going to be discoverable now.
Those official tick-mark badges now signal how many paid subscribers a writer has (100s, 1000s, 10K+) and are displayed next to their byline.
In the defense of writers, there was an overwhelming backlash in the comments saying that this system creates an “us” vs “them” dichotomy, reducing people with no paid subs or very few subs as creating content not worth reading or acknowledging. Even the folks with the orange tick marks said they were appalled with the idea and didn’t want it. Substack said they’ve taken the feedback but they rolled out the feature anyway.
It took 2 or 3 persistent stinker comments in the December 2022 Office Hours thread from the same writer that finally someone on the Substack team responded. The verdict: they aren’t backing down, but they’ll make sure all writers with any number of paid subs can soon earn a badge. Gee, thanks for listening I guess.
Every Substack newsletter looks…the same, with some minor color differences. There aren’t any customization tools and audience segmentation isn’t an option. Give us some themes and better integrations. Have you seen some of the websites hosted on Ghost? They’re jaw-dropping. At the end of the day, your publication is YOUR brand; you use it for interviews, as a resume stop-gap, as a conversation starter, and as part of your grander internet legacy. If you have run a newsletter for close to a year (or more), and you can convince or inspire 3 subscribers to pay a minimum of USD 5/month, it’s possibly worth considering a shift if any of these arguments are valid for you.
It’s not a Substack, it’s What’s Curation?
The formation of cliques and mutual understandings: This might ruffle feathers, but I’ll say it. On Office Hours and other places, the same people show up, the same kind of comments are repeated in boring, faux-enthusiasm (“keep writing even if you have 5 total subscribers!”/ “Stay motivated and never give up!”), a decent amount of self-promotion occurs, and the same newsletters are recommended over and over. Some folks demand a recommendation back when they recommend you, ala Medium style (not to be confused with the polite expectation of reciprocation).
I will say, 99.99% of these asynchronous connections (i.e., they’re subscribed to me but I’m not to them) have been very blessed for me, and we’ve been understanding of this one-way street.
Similarly, I am subscribed to & recommending someone and they don’t reciprocate. (and that’s okay!)
Arguments for my readers to support writers outside Substack
With a Substack model, you’re forced to choose between monthly and annual. If a tip jar were available, you could support us as and when you can; maybe more when you can afford it and maybe a few dollars when you can’t but still want to show solidarity for the hours we put into the endeavor. More choices for you means more incentive for me and my buddies to write.
Other platforms, like Ghost, for example, expect an upfront payment (monthly or annual) from the creator, and then the creator keeps 100% of all the paid subs earned.4 The caveat is that the upfront fee is proportional to the number of subscribers— Charged annually, Ghost asks for 9 USD/month for up to 500 readers, and then for 500-1000 readers, it asks for 15 USD/month. So, if I charge a $5/month subscription tier, I need 3-4 paid subs to break even (after Stripe fees). Coupled with tiered subscription options and a tip jar, there is a viable option for readers from across the financial spectrum to pitch in with even a couple of dollars every month.
You will experience a richer browsing and reading experience!
Your emails will be migrated, so no need to re-sign up. Your Stripe payment info will be migrated across, so you won’t experience any issues with your existing subscription.
I haven’t decided anything yet, but I believe I’ve clearly stated the issues at hand. Writers and readers alike, please feel free to reply to this email in your inbox with your thoughts (privately) or post a comment (publicly).
That’s month 10.
—Nikhil.
Footnotes
As an iPhone user and Apple Music subscriber, I fully understand that some of you might label me a hypocrite for criticizing the walled garden argument. With Apple, you full well know that you’re entering the garden and staying there. But Substack projects itself as a product that allows people to leave on a moment’s notice. The dissonance between that vision and recent developments makes me wonder where the line is drawn.
The Observer on trolls using Substack to spam targets, Jude Doyle on trans writers leaving Substack, why no-moderation Ghost seems a better option to light moderation Substack
Ah yes, Substack Pro—the program where Substack paid writers to start their newsletter on the platform and stipulated posting frequency among other things in the contract. But at the end of the year-long commitment, the authors have to depend on subscriptions to keep the ride going. Again, the line between platform and publisher is blurred.
This could cause short-term discomfort for both parties. In Substack, the big and medium fish support the platform for the fry to the extent possible. Outside Substack, the writer is forced to run a tight ship or spend unnecessary funds out of pocket. In this case, it’s in their best interest to keep their email lists clean. Veteran email marketers might encourage this—anyone who doesn’t open emails/doesn’t participate in the conversation won’t pay up nor help to strengthen the cause through sharing or other means. Why pay money to keep them on?
I’ll follow you wherever you go. I hope the decision makers at Substack read this thorough, thoughtful piece.
I appreciate the time it took you to put this all together. I definitely agree that a native tipping option (even if the default goes to one's Ko-fi) would be a huge. Medium recently did that, and it might be the one positive change that's happened over the last year.
I'd also like to see bundling become a thing. Substack has previously said they're against it, but never really said why. And to be honest; they get a cut anyway, so it's in their best interest. People generally spend the same amount, so they'll either pay $50 to one author annually, or that same $50 to be split amongst 2-4 writers. The net remains the same.
Regarding chat: I've gone back and forth on whether or not to deploy it. Right now I'm debating adding it as a paid-only perk. But I dunno. I have all the notifications turned off, so I don't use it too often as it is.
Badges suck. I can't say it any better than you already have.
Regarding Substack Go/Grow/Pro- Go was a huge benefit for me personally. For Pro, I'd love to see them offer than sort of program to "middle class" writers on the platform. It's a low-lift investment for Substack, but could be life changing for a writer.
I still find value in Office Hours, but your points are 100% accurate and well taken. And tbh, anyone that "demands" an in-kind subscription, recommendation, etc. rarely gets heard from by me again. If I wanted that, I'd have doubled down on Medium.
I do want to respectfully pushback a little on discovery in general. I seem to be finding more people than ever (and vice versa). I didn't realize they cut it to 25, but I just looked before writing, and there are some newer/smaller names on there.
Same with the benefits of other platforms. I tried Mailchimp and Aweber. I didn't like either. I don't want to fuss with widgets, I just want to write. I recognize that others find value in that sort of thing, but I also have to believe that a lot of writers are in the same boat as me?
I 100% expect Substack to introduce native ads at some point this year. No idea what that'll look like or even how I feel about it, but I can't help but think it's coming.
All of that said, we can tell ourselves that this isn't a social media platform, but it is. It's just one that has a longer tail form to it. Ask writers what they like-or why they stay- and "the people" or a similar answer will usually be in the top 3. That's certainly true in my case.