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We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

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Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#261

Post by BurningFrog »

HWR_14 wrote: post #258
BurningFrog wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels weird to have to say this, but Trump is the leading candidate to become US president in 2024, not some fringe extremist.

> Trump is the leading candidate to become US president in 2024, not some fringe extremist. He may be the leading candidate to be the republican nominee, but that's not the same as the leading candidate likely to win. Your logic also doesn't work; you can be both the leading candidate and a fringe extremist.

"Fringe" and "extremist" are relative terms.

By definition whoever wins the most votes is mainstream, not a fringe extremist.

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#262

Post by moviewise »

klabb3 wrote: post #88
cjbest wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading articles may be an almost perfect fit for web, but we see a really clear pattern among the 70% of our users that read in mobile: they discover stuff to read on the web through links that get shared, but once they sign up they overwhelmingly read in their email client. Email is actually pretty great for this, and email is especially powerful for giving writers direct connection to their readers. But there are…

> developing for email is still a pretty big pain. I hear you, it's a shit show! I'm gonna have to do that myself soon and I don't look forward to it. > But there are limits to what you can do [in email] But email will still be a very common entry point for readers (unless you expect to change the behavior of your users), so you still need to link to the app or website from the email. As a user I don't mind an app fr…

> But what are the things the app can do that the web cannot?

As a subscriber to many Substack newsletters with different publishing schedules, I've found it to be a bit tedious and distracting to have my email inbox be inundated with new posts. I'd rather go to a reader app that has all the newsletters I've subscribed to in one place for when I have the time and the interest to spend a couple of hours reading. I'd like for the app to just send me a reminder once a week with who published what so that I can decide if I want to go to the reader app and peruse at my leisure.

As a writer on Substack I've found that readers like to reply directly to the emails they receive instead of leaving a comment on the web version so that others could see it and perhaps react/interact with it. If the app could help harness a community for the writers by making it more comfortable for readers to like and leave comments, then that would be beneficial in building a brand. Additionally, if the app has a mechanism to recommend Substack newsletters that are similar to the one a particular reader is reading then that would help expand the reach/discoverability of lesser known writers.

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#263

Post by wpietri »

zozbot234 wrote: post #159
wpietri wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That philosophical stance is very common at the beginnings of a platform. E.g., Twitter being the "free-speech wing of the free-speech party". Or Christopher "moot" Poole, who created 4-chan. But over time, tensions develop between the theory and the practice. So what sorts of things do you folks find personally odious but see it as important to support? From your terms of service, obviously porn isn't in that catego…

Why would these actors want to publish on Substack in the first place? They have their own platforms already. Alt-right content is highly "meme" based (e.g. the whole thing with frogs and 'Kekistan', or the Qanon LARPing), it doesn't do well on a platform focused on long-form texts with serious intellectual interest.

One obvious answer is revenue. Getting money in is a real struggle for extremists, who tend to get banned from traditional platforms. Think of it as like paying membership dues.

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#264

Post by edmundsauto »

scott_paul wrote: post #171
KerrAvon wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The range of opinion that Big Tech deems permissible seems to be getting narrower and narrower I'm not affiliated with Substack, but I'm having difficulty with your premise here. There's literally a Trump app on the App Store right now dedicated to spreading falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election. What opinions is "Big Tech" "censoring" and why should one think there's any validity to your slippery slope a…

Well, for starters Gab is banned from the App Store for their near-absolutist stance on free speech. More than that is the general culture of suppression of the "wrong" view of reality. Most people who were merely to the right of center moderates in the 00's are now accused of being absolute evil if they voice any opinions. I've been told by well more than a dozen former co-workers that they're afraid to say anything…

> I've been told by well more than a dozen former co-workers that they're afraid to say anything or let anyone at work find out about their political opinions because they're afraid of getting fired

In fairness, there are multiple explanations that don’t involve this being objectively true, while also being how these people perceive their situation.

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#265

Post by krapp »

HWR_14 wrote: post #260
krapp wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I said that if not for those events I think Trump could have won. Better leadership with COVID along with his (somewhat fictitious but still compelling) narrative of turning around the economy would probably have put him over Biden. Even though Biden won by a sizeable margin of popular votes - and as a candidate, he received more votes than any other candidate in history - he won with fewer electoral votes (the…

> [Biden] won with fewer electoral votes [than] Trump over in 2016. That's both not true and trivially checkable.

In 2016, Trump won by 77,744 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In 2020, Biden won by 42,844 votes in Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona.

I got my numbers here[0] so feel free to fact check me. I may have been imprecise in referring to electoral votes specifically, but I think I am correct about the margins of victory.

[0]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/did-biden-wi...

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#266

Post by edmundsauto »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #243
cjbest wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading articles may be an almost perfect fit for web, but we see a really clear pattern among the 70% of our users that read in mobile: they discover stuff to read on the web through links that get shared, but once they sign up they overwhelmingly read in their email client. Email is actually pretty great for this, and email is especially powerful for giving writers direct connection to their readers. But there are…

By "read in their email client" (presumably on mobile) I will assume that people view but do not read. Attention spans on mobile are atrocious (notably, the fulcrum is screen size having a neurological impact on ability to pay attention - this is a biological fact) – very little real reading takes place. I can imagine Substack is more of an "aspires to read X" platform than a place for actually reading X. This argume…

Not affiliated with Substack, but this doesn’t feel like a fair assessment. For me, email is the best way to consume curated content that I don’t get distracted. Often, like with Matt Levine, it’s a way around a paywall and obnoxious sites.

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#267

Post by ryantgtg »

Substack has the unfriendliest login process of any service I use. And I’m disappointed to see no improvement in the app. When the app is first installed, why can’t I just login with an email and password? Why is “we’ll send you an email with a login link” considered a better option (by you) than giving the user a choice to enter a password?

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#268

Post by briandear »

wpietri wrote: post #135
cjbest wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2: We do have a strong philosophical stance on this. We think taking a strong stance in favor of freedom of the press is both the right thing to do, and critical to the success of our broader mission. We've written about this a few times, e.g. https://on.substack.com/p/substacks-view-of-content-moderati... and https://on.substack.com/p/society-has-a-trust-problem-more That is incidentally a big part of the answer for…

That philosophical stance is very common at the beginnings of a platform. E.g., Twitter being the "free-speech wing of the free-speech party". Or Christopher "moot" Poole, who created 4-chan. But over time, tensions develop between the theory and the practice. So what sorts of things do you folks find personally odious but see it as important to support? From your terms of service, obviously porn isn't in that catego…

[flagged]

Re: We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA

#270

Post by moviewise »

decryption wrote: post #239
stereoradonc wrote: post #176

Substack is a pyramid scheme in terms of "payments" - I am sure they will start up a "search" for the newsletters and then paid advertisements. To all the HN regulars here - own your medium instead. Own your content. There's no need to stick to yet another VC funded "writing experience". Many potential readers will eventually hit a subscription fatigue. There are several proven strategies to monetise your content (an…

I 100% agree with this take. I've got an email newsletter that 874 people pay me $5/m to read (The Sizzle - https://thesizzle.com.au ). I set it up outside of Substack a few years ago, then migrated when Substack launched with the hope their platform would bring in new readers and make my life easier. This turned out to be a massive waste of over a year, as not only did the newsletter stop growing, it lost subscriber…

>What I put out there every day is worth the measly $5 a month I charge for it. What worked well for me in the past was giving out a no strings attached free trial of The Sizzle for two weeks then asking people to pay if they want it to continue. Substack’s business model however is freemium content. You give away the bulk of your content to build an audience then upsell that audience with paid subscriber only content. [...] I could add a 14-day free trial to the paid subscription, but Substack doesn’t do free trials without also adding a credit card and automatically charging that card when the trial is over. Most people hate this (me included) as they’re scared they’ll forget to cancel before the trial ends and get charged for something they don’t want, so they just don’t take the risk.

Your model sounds better for professional writers, or already established writers. But the benefit of Substack for emerging writers is that it gives them a platform to establish a brand presence with the hope that it will develop into a large enough audience to get enthusiastic readers who will convert into paid subscribers. There is also no easy way for new writers to try to start a writing career while also trying to figure out different technologies to send out a newsletter. Substack makes it completely easy, and it's fair that they charge some percentage once a writer starts earning money while using their platform.

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