Why is it that Substack can’t just be run as a 10-20 person small-medium sized business forever? If publishers want to go there for a basic product, and Substack can collect rent from them, what’s the problem?
Hate makes people blind. Starship is failing by design - that's just how they're choosing to develop it. The chopsticks video that we saw earlier was very nearly science fiction. And as far as regular launches go, SpaceX has done more successful launches than any company or nation ever.
But more generally, this idea of abandoning an app (or product) the moment you encounter people who disagree with you is disheartening.
The network effects of substack seem pretty weak. Authors can use their own domain name and export a list of their subscribers any time. Their value is in providing software that is sticky for writers and solves a lot of the problems of creating and retaining an audience, which they seem to be doing pretty effectively. For better or worse, I don't think substack has much influence on the broader ecosystem either way; it's all down to consumer demand.
Here's how little I understand business: $45 million in revenue, earned by taking a totally fair 10% of subscriptions that other people do all the work to get, seems like it ought to be enough. If leadership is trying to scale up to be thousands of employees, or to go public, they are lunatics and deserve to fail. Why not just run a successful newsletter platform?
This post didn't age well – 3 weeks later Substack announced a $100m fundraise at $1.1b valuation. [1]
Ana's contention that Substack is "rickety" seems motivated by her conviction that they should adopt a more assertive, aggressive censorship regime, and that "we need a world where a social safety net protects risky writing".
There are certainly many interesting questions about the future of media and Substack's business – but the parade of people saying it can't succeed without more moderation keep being proven wrong.
I don't think moderation has anything to do with it and it's not the core of the argument in the article. They've taken a huge valuation and investors will want a return on that. The problem is that there's just not that much loyalty in this space. I don't care where the content is hosted as long as it's not annoying, content makers don't care so long as they can make money. When substack starts needing to extract value they have to do it in a way that's annoying and chances are high we see the next platform appear. We've seen it before.
It would be lovely to see a platform get big taking a sustainable approach. But that investment money buys marketing and hype.
I feel ambivalent about Substack's Notes (its version of X/Bluesky). On the one hand, the signal/noise ratio is higher than either X or Bluesky. On the other hand, I can see signs of the social media engagement farming nonsense that I've come to dread.
But, I can just click on the "Following" link to avoid it. In fact, I can even set that as my homepage. So, so far, it's not that bad. And I continue to enjoy the diversity of writers; and am much more worried by virtuous scolds than by neonazis.
> The problem isn’t just that Substack makes money off Nazis, it’s that they don’t seem to care who they make it from.
Ana Marie Cox can move to Medium, they have that "diverse and inclusive" editorial policy she is seeking, we all know how "great" Medium has been doing...
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 21.8 ms ] threadHate makes people blind. Starship is failing by design - that's just how they're choosing to develop it. The chopsticks video that we saw earlier was very nearly science fiction. And as far as regular launches go, SpaceX has done more successful launches than any company or nation ever.
But more generally, this idea of abandoning an app (or product) the moment you encounter people who disagree with you is disheartening.
Ana's contention that Substack is "rickety" seems motivated by her conviction that they should adopt a more assertive, aggressive censorship regime, and that "we need a world where a social safety net protects risky writing".
There are certainly many interesting questions about the future of media and Substack's business – but the parade of people saying it can't succeed without more moderation keep being proven wrong.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/business/substack-fundrai...
It would be lovely to see a platform get big taking a sustainable approach. But that investment money buys marketing and hype.
But, I can just click on the "Following" link to avoid it. In fact, I can even set that as my homepage. So, so far, it's not that bad. And I continue to enjoy the diversity of writers; and am much more worried by virtuous scolds than by neonazis.
Ana Marie Cox can move to Medium, they have that "diverse and inclusive" editorial policy she is seeking, we all know how "great" Medium has been doing...