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Substack’s Ideology
Social media giants gave us rekindled friendships, family photos, even the occasional uplifting story or useful insight. But too much of what we’ve received has been toxic gruel, tube-fed (through aptly named “feeds”) by sophisticated algorithms designed to exploit our worst impulses and keep us agitated, excited, engaged
Nathan Baschez • Substack’s Ideology
Social media giants gave us rekindled friendships, family photos, even the occasional uplifting story or useful insight. But too much of what we’ve received has been toxic gruel, tube-fed (through aptly named “feeds”) by sophisticated algorithms designed to exploit our worst impulses and keep us agitated, excited, engaged
Twitter makes money from your attention, so they need to compel your attention. Sometimes that leads to good things, like connecting you to people and ideas that matter. But it also means that the addiction, abuse, and outrage that thrive on Twitter and other social platforms may be impossible to eradicate. So what’s left to do? You can change the... See more
Nathan Baschez • Substack’s Ideology
Twitter makes money from your attention, so they need to compel your attention. Sometimes that leads to good things, like connecting you to people and ideas that matter. But it also means that the addiction, abuse, and outrage that thrive on Twitter and other social platforms may be impossible to eradicate. So what’s left to do? You can change the rules. That’s why we started Substack: when readers pay writers directly, it’s a whole new game.
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
If Substack’s app becomes a place readers turn to directly and are more likely to engage with, it becomes that much more valuable of a place to be for writers. In the same way we turned to email to escape the noise of Facebook and Twitter, readers of the future might turn to the Substack app to escape the noise of email. This is the nature of... See more
Nathan Baschez • Substack’s Ideology
By launching reading apps for web and mobile, Substack is attempting to carve out a space in readers lives that is separate from administrivia and spam. A quieter, more sacred space.
Nathan Baschez • Substack’s Ideology
Right now when people read a Substack post, it’s usually because they first decided to check their email. Email is good for maintaining a direct relationship between readers and writers, but it kinda sucks as a place to read. When I’m checking my inbox I’m in a mode where I want to bat away everything as quickly as possible in order to get to inbox... See more
Nathan Baschez • Substack’s Ideology
Inboxes. Instead of endless feed-scrolling, Substack only puts content in your inbox that you specifically opted-in to receive. Whether in your email inbox or in a separate Substack inbox in their reader app, you only see things you decided to see. You are in control.
Nathan Baschez • Substack’s Ideology
Subscriptions. As Chris likes to say, people will ‘hate read’ things, but they won’t ‘hate pay’. When readers are asked to pay for content, they make their consumption decisions more consciously, as their better selves.
Nathan Baschez • Substack’s Ideology
Engagement algorithms. All the algorithms see are engagement metrics, they don’t care what they put in front of our faces. But what we read matters, and the most viral content is not the most valuable. Virality favors emotions like outrage, so it manufactures it from nothing if necessary, and we become addicted.Correspondingly, each evil has an... See more