The current unbundling phase is unsustainable and the long-term media business could look more like the past newspaper model than expected

There may be fewer niche communities online and lower intent to pay for a subscription

Another problem with this advertiser relationship with websites was logistics. Not only was it hard to decide which websites to buy ads on, but it was hard to coordinate. Each website often had their own ad sales team and there wasn’t enough time and resources as a buyer to deal with all these sales teams.

Ad networks, most notably Facebook and Google, provided solutions to advertisers’ buying problems. The main thing they provided was more data on consumers.

Email subscriptions don’t have network effects by themselves. Right now, there isn’t a large switching cost for a creator to leave Substack – the creator owns their email list and content. The interesting part, however, comes in when the platform provides enough value that a writer would lose subscribers by switching platforms and when subscribers... See more

Companies like Memberful, Patreon, Ghost or others could become the platform that Substack is aiming to build

The reason I find this company so interesting is it doesn’t seem like a venture-backable business at first glance. In order to get $100M in revenue, they would have to have $1.0B in gross subscription volume. When they went through YC, they had an average revenue / subscriber of $70. If that stays the same, Substack will need about 14.3M paid... See more

Substack has a business model that creates unique unit economics. Substack isn’t trying to build the next The Economist or The Athletic. It’s not branded; the consumer doesn’t need to know what Substack is. Instead, the growth will come from consumers resonating with individual creators.

High-performing creators may churn from Substack to build their own cheaper backend