111–120 of 451 posts
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Yes. VP of Partnerships, VP of Communications, Head of Talent are all women at the top table.
Thanks for the quick response! Hopefully that trend continues and we can see some of that diversity move beyond the VP-level and on into the C-suite. :)
I’m sure that you probably know my opinion on all this already (given my general loudness about newsletter things in general, as the editor of Tedium), but I’d love to see you offer options to create ecosystem options that don’t rely on having to publish on Substack proper. It seems like creators could use the support of something like Substack without being tied to the publishing platform itself. That seems like a r…
As someone who does want to self host, which Substack services would be valuable to you? What do you feel like we could offer you?
If liberalism means anything, it's the ability of the individual to speak truth even when the mob or the government demands that they remain silent. Substack is one of the only platforms available that hasn't bent the knee to the hysterical mob, and I can't tell you how grateful I am for your spine.
Regarding the app, it's very welcome. I've been using the Safari bookmark in the meantime, and the app is FAR better -- the ability to interact more smoothly, save position, etc. A couple issues:
1) Unarchiving? I experimented with archiving an article. While I'm able to find it in the archived section, I don't see any option to unarchive it.
2) Themes? My theme is set to dark, which is great, but I also enjoy sepia in daylight. I don't see any option to change the color scheme.
3) Podcasts? Podcasts in Substack sound like a great idea, but I've had nothing but problems trying to add certain podcasts (e.g. Late Republic Nonsense) to my PocketCasts app. The only way seems to be having Substack email me a personalized podcast subscription URL rather than an open feed I can just search for in PocketCasts. Partnering with Callin might be an interesting idea, since they seem to have adopted the "Substack but for podcasts" model -- often even recruiting Substack talent.
4) Discovery? I'm really glad to see a discovery tab, and I'd love to see suggestions ("if you like Glenn Greenwald, you might also like...").
5) Pricing? Substack has a great model of direct payments, with writers I want to read, but it gets steep very quickly. Rather than dropping $100/year each for five different writers I want to follow, could you explore bundling? Superstars like Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi will probably want to remain independent, but there are lots of smaller names who might benefit from exposure through bundling several smaller newsletters under a single price; or simply from more flexible pricing entirely. I don't think I've seen a single newsletter that offers an annual subscription for under $50-60.
I have a subscription to Apple News almost exclusively for the WSJ, but they also have a lot of other inferior magazines -- The Atlantic, New Yorker, etc. As dramatically as they've fallen in quality, it's still a compelling bundle for $10/month, with my payments allocated across publications based on the articles I read. Have you considered a similar bundle, or allowing writers to form their own bundles?
6) Saving articles? I can save articles to a bookmark and store them in a bookmark folder, which works fine, but it would be convenient to save my favorite articles in Substack that allows me to revisit them.
7) Improving comments? The comments section isn't bad, but they could also become crucial draws. Reddit and HN are draws generally for the quality of their comment sections. Substack currently has an unusually excellent audience -- generally intelligent people interested in deep dives into controversial subjects in order to find the truth. There must be some way to liberalize and interweave comment sections in order to draw on audience expertise and perspective.
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You're only saying that censorship isn't a problem for content that you personally judge to be unimportant. Many don't see it that way - they see policies like this as evidence of Substack appeasing Christian moralist values that have "cancelled" the expression of sexuality and sexual identity outside of a set of norms acceptable to them. Worse, these "blanket" policies often only end up enforced against LGBTQ people…
> ... but they are absolutely censoring content for political reasons when they ban the arbitrarily defined category of "pornography". Have they said in plaintext that this is politically motivated or motivated by their "values"? A lot of platforms that censor sexual content don't do so out of their own wants or desires. I mean, what user generated content platform wants less users ? Instead, they're pressured by VC'…
A popular sentiment on HN is "don't make an app when you can just have a web page". Reading articles is an an almost perfect fit for the web. What are your reasons for having an app?
> A popular sentiment on HN is "don't make an app when you can just have a web page". I have yet to hear a user data analytics team say that.
This probably isn't the venue for it, but your refusal to engage in the sort of content moderation the entire rest of the industry has determined "necessary" cannot be commended enough Societal pressure on this has been intense, and your team's tweets in support of individual expression have been absolutely landmark tweets, and I am a paying customer because of it Sincerely, thank you
Is it viable to launch an app only for one major platform (iOS), excluding Android with it's payment system entirely? Another question, since I cannot check it - are you collecting payments for subscriptions through the App Store with it's 30% mark? Or are you exempt?
In the iOS app, we don't support in-app-purchases (subscribers can upgrade to paid via email/web) so there's no 30% take from Apple.
A popular sentiment on HN is "don't make an app when you can just have a web page". Reading articles is an an almost perfect fit for the web. What are your reasons for having an app?