How Substack's follow feature betrays its original mission
Many (if not most) successful Substacks are built on the back of pithy tweets. Substack offers minimal to no demand aggregation so creators with large Twitter followings funnel their followers to their email newsletter. Similarly, TikTok stars also point their viewers to their Youtube page because Youtube offers more robust monetization options.
Evan Armstrong • Top 12 Creator Platforms—Ranked
The second thing Substack is doing to build power within the constraints of their ideology is to create content discovery loops that are driven by people, rather than algorithms. This is why Substack lets writers feature other writers on their sites, and gives readers profiles where they can display which Substacks they are subscribed to.
Nathan Baschez • Substack’s Ideology
What Substack is doing is taking the power away from readers and themselves, and giving it to authors. What does that mean? They are betting that in the market of long-form articles, the player with the most power is the author, not the reader. It’s the supply that matters, not the demand.
Tomas Pueyo • The Future of Substack
How will Substack get around their stated promise to never develop algorithmic content recommendation engines, while still helping their writers reach new audiences? Well, if you open the Substack app, you are greeted by a “Discover” tab which recommends publications rather than posts. (Nice one!) It is unclear what algorith-ahem, method—is used to... See more
Nathan Baschez • Substack’s Ideology
“On Substack, creators own their content and their mailing list, guaranteeing that they can always connect directly with their community—even if they leave the platform. They also have a clear and reliable way to make money, from direct subscriptions. There is a powerful discovery system in Substack, with a social-media-like feed but with the twist
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