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Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

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41–50 of 178 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#41
post #18

It's pro free speech, which is the opposite of almost every other platform in 2022.

So this is an interesting distinction. Isn't "free speech" much easier to support if your platform is zero/minimal discovery to it? I.e. if you actively are searching for and subscribe to it, you're actively signaling your choice. Whereas, YT, Twitter, etc. content gets throw at you whether you like it or not.

Twitter wasn't like that. In the beginning you only received content you subscribed to. But they decided to change that.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#42
post #4

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

Could you provide a link or two of content that might be censored elsewhere? I am curious to read “banned literature”.

Here’s one: https://alexberenson.substack.com/

(Former NY Times reporter)

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#43

Substack feels like Medium except instead of blogspam from overexcited junior React developers, you get blogspam from wannabe pseudo-philosophers. As other have mentioned the lack of Paywall is nice tho. Medium had one of the most frustrating iirc.

I will never give Medium a single dollar and big part of that is their lying paywall. It always says "Login to view the rest of the article" or something like that. After you login you have a 50-50 chance that it will say something like "you've reached the end of your free article limit" or some variation on that. Sometimes visiting the same link again will show you the content. It makes zero sense and pisses me off…

I, on the other hand, am happy to see a non advertising based business model and thus pay for medium and find it very good value for money compared to a newspaper.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#44
post #4

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

Could you provide a link or two of content that might be censored elsewhere? I am curious to read “banned literature”.

Here is, for example, a post by unabashed Russian nationalist, in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, blaming “Western Supremacist (…) miscreants” for the blood being spilled:

https://akarlin.substack.com/p/happening-the-ukraine-war-202...

One of his previous posts is his analysis of the (then, upcoming) war, its context, and causes.

Of course, you need to take it with an open pit sized block of salt — eg he predicted that the Russia will most likely conquer Ukraine in less than a week. This, needless to say, turned to be laughably wrong, and makes rest of his analysis rather questionable.

The point is, however, that you are unlikely to see this sort of unabashed (indeed, proud) and undistorted Russian perspective elsewhere in western media sphere — indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if this comment got downvoted for “spreading Russian propaganda”. Myself, I think it is extremely important to understand the perspective and motivation of the enemy, so that you can predict their movements and effectively prevent or resist them.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#46
post #12

someone posted a twit where they explained how they get a lot more subscribers/followers in their newsletter with substack than wordpress. I guess substack is a lot more aggressive at this kind of marketing. So a lot of writers will prefer to post in it, especially since it looks clean until now.

https://twitter.com/bryan_caplan/status/1514323212972150785

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#47

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.

Sure, but it was a good deal for them because Substack advanced them a lot of money. Substack's platform features and general content creator revenue model may be better than most but are incidental to why those heavy hitters chose to join.

Musicians complain a lot about Spotify being a poor deal for them financially, but there's no doubt it was an excellent deal for Joe Rogan.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#49
I don't think its anything about free speech and other social media platforms. I think its about a revival of the old blogosphere--particularly of those writers who found success there and made writing their career--with the added incentive that monetizing it doesn't require putting a whole bunch of shady ads on your site, or keeping an infrequently pinged tip jar. Writers like Noah Smith moved away from their blog to writing for newspapers and magazines because its how they make their living. They moved to Substack because they probably felt it gave them more control over their careers.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Substack so popular?

#50
Because it makes it easy to do journalism and get paid to do journalism.

The get paid part is important. You like one writer on substack, you give em 5 bucks a month. You like someone else, it's exactly the same process to give 5 bucks.

It's the same as Twitch (for gamers) - where people give 5$/month to people who just stream themselves playing computer games. It's because it's a single click and it's the same click for all other streamers.

The barrier substack has broken, is the shitshow that is payments online - they did it for journalists, twitch did it for gamers, onlyfans did it for chicks showing their body parts, etc.

Of course the problem that'll destroy Substack is when they will inevitably raise their fees, piss off their writers and in 10 years, some other Substack like thing will pop up, that'll do the same thing and so the cycle continues.

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