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Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#71

Post by pen2l »

> But, I am genuinely curious why is it getting so popular and particularly here on Hacker News. Does it have some kind of a hidden feature that makes it very appealing?

As I understand it, when Substack first started it did a funny one: it paid some successful bloggers to jump ship to substack and convinced them of a secure and promising subscription-based income. My favorite example being Scott Alexander Siskind.

I have no concern about what medium the content I want is presented in (so long as they don't use low contrast or silly fonts), I will just go wherever I can find Scott. And Scott now happens to be in substack so I go to substack.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#72

Post by superbaconman »

lhnz wrote: post #8

Many writers like them because they seem to have made both costly and cheap signals to show that they are on the side of writers: (1) they say they are "anti-censorship" and won't evict writers from their "private platform" (2) they let the writer own their audience / mailing list (so they can leave with their audience, if they want to) (3) they advanced money to popular writers These things with the addition of a si…

Another interesting thing is that they don't rank what's "popular" by clicks. Crazy good idea IMO

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#73

Post by trynewideas »

mrfusion wrote: post #15

I love sun stack but I really think they need a way to pool subscriptions or lower the cost. I’m not going to spend $100/month to follow my ten favorite bloggers.

It's the same problem as streaming services and a-la-carte programming. Maybe a side effect of subsidizing writers instead of subscriptions; it'd be easier to pull a "subscribe to 2 writers and get a 3rd subscription on us"-style deal and let the readers figure out who gets paid that Substack-funded bonus if they were spending more money on reader growth than popular writers, but it'd be less likely to result in the kinds of content they have now.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#74

Post by Cthulhu_ »

tharne wrote: post #4

They are very pro free speech, so you tend to get more interesting (and potentially more heretical) writers compared to other platforms.

I mean I'm not opposed to people voicing their opinion as long as it's legal content and there's no algorithms that can be abused to push one article over another. I do believe this is an issue with other platforms like Twitter and Reddit; you can give everyone an equally sized soapbox to voice their whatsits on, but because of their algorithms and the other part of user interaction, upvotes, they open themselves up for algorithmic abuse, pushing the "controversial" opinions up higher.

This was pretty obvious in 2015/2016 with the Trump campaign managing to get a lot of exposure everywhere.

But it's also a self-reinforcing thing, because e.g. Twitter has earned millions from all of the engagement that anything Trump did on the platform; he tweeted, millions would flock to the replies, and tens or hundreds of millions would know that he tweeted through the thousands of news outlets that pounced on it. I'm pretty confident that if it wasn't for Trump, Twitter would've petered out years ago.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#75

Post by antidnan »

Their "hidden feature" is massively simplifying the setup of a blog for someone nontechnical who wants

(1) A modern "minimalist" themed blog focused on written content (2) An email newsletter with the same content (3) Optionally allow paid subscribers

I've tried everything in the blog world, and most are a headache to maintain. The closest would be Ghost, but they haven't done as well on the GTM side. Substack has set itself apart by landing "tech twitter" influencers who philosophize... which is probably why you're seeing it bleed into the HN world.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#76

Post by Cthulhu_ »

skybrian wrote: post #30
beaconstudios wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what they meant though: paying celebrities to join while giving people the impression that those celebrities joined by free choice* (ie because the platform was so great). * edit: free choice as in "not swayed by payment"

They signed a contract of their own free choice because it was a good deal for them. This isn't hidden. There's no reason to hide it any more than a musician would hide getting signed by a record label.

Did they mention that Substack paid them to post? I believe disclosure is a defining factor between astroturfing and "just" marketing/sales/paid promotions.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#77

Post by Cthulhu_ »

beaconstudios wrote: post #61
DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a very different definition of “free choice” than I think is typical.

I mean free choice as in they decided unprompted. It's still a free choice in terms of free will either way - I'm not sure what the better term would be. Unprompted I guess.

I mean. I'd probably post less shitposts on HN if someone offered me a financial incentive.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#78

Post by somehnacct3757 »

I don't really support it one way or the other, as a reader I will go wherever the writers that interest me are.

One thing I think is powerful is that they let you own your audience. If they ever fuck up, writers can just bounce. It means substack should focus on tools writers want, rather than building an indentured trap by holding their audience ransom like most other publishing platforms do. The platform's politics don't matter if they can't deplatform you.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#79

Post by trynewideas »

nonameiguess wrote: post #17

There are two questions here, really. The first is why does Substack appeal to readers? To me, it doesn't. What appeals to me are the writers. If I care to read what they write, I'd read it on any platform. They happen to be on Substack, so I read them on Substack. The other question is why does it appeal to writers, in particular the more popular high-quality, high-prestige writers that are attracting readers? I don…

> The other question is why does it appeal to writers, in particular the more popular high-quality, high-prestige writers that are attracting readers?

Getting paid directly for writing, without dealing with the administrative overhead of things not specifically built for writing, like Patreon.

We can talk about censorship all day until we're prohibited from doing so by a private entity and move to another platform, but it won't change the fact that the writers yelling the most about it could've easily set up a Patreon with a monthly plan and published long-form text there. Plenty of people still do it. Substack just does that one thing better.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#80

Post by _bfhp »

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #31

Substack was really good at getting writers with dedicated followings on their platform and properly monetizing their skills. Take a look at someone like Freddie deBoer. He was a very popular blogger, had written for all the prestigious publications, and was about to accept a $15/hr manual labor job before substack offered him a contract. Now he's making 200k+ a year. Once enough popular writers were on the platform,…

I'm about halfway into his book. I'm not someone familiar with the education field so I just nod along during his discussions of the studies, but that introduction chapter was so good. I want to send it to everyone I know.
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