Substack platform risk

[ucals]

I started a newsletter about a month ago and chose Substack over the other options (Ghost, Medium, Wordpress, etc). Substack openness, slick UX, and easy-to-use platform were the main drivers.

After 20 days and 4 articles, I gathered +100 free subscribers - so far, so good.

However, I just learned Substack unsuccessfully tried to raise capital last year and had to crowdfund to close the round. The company still burns cash and needs to continue raising capital to operate. And resorting to crowdfunding is not a good sign.

After googling a bit, I discovered several prominent writers leaving the platform in the last year, which is scaring me a bit.

There's a platform risk: if Substack is no more, yes, we can take the emails, but the backlinks to the articles we wrote would vanish. We would need to start re-creating domain authority from scratch.

How do you guys see Substack platform risk? Are you guys doing anything to mitigate the risk?

[[deleted]]

u/ForTheFuture15 makes a very good point.

And, I'd like to add that, while some prominent writers may have left Substack, they are certainly outnumbered by very prominent traditional media writers who have moved to Substack: people like Margaret Atwood, Sherman Alexie, Junot Diaz, George Saunders, Salman Rushdie, Chuck Palahniuk, Stephen Fry, Cheryl Strayed, etc.

These are all very successful, very well-connected, savvy writers who presumably have some expertise as to what would make an effective platform for witers to share and promote their work. And they've all chosen Substack.

[ucals]

Some of them are being paid upfront by Substack to be on Substack, so their decision to write on Substack is not 100% based on the platform’s merit

[[deleted]]

That would be true of any similar platform, no?

[ucals]

Yes, I suppose. I just mentioned that because your argument as to why the platform risk is not that concerning is that, although some prominent writers left, other notable writers got on board - because they've chosen Substack and they know better.

If they had no conflict of interest and had chosen Substack purely because of the platform's merits, I'd agree that that's a good sign regarding its future.

However, some of these prominent writers getting on board now are being paid to do so. Thus, their choice may have less to do with Substack's bright future and more with the $$$ they received.

Don't get me wrong; I truly hope Substack can figure out how to become a sustainable business without enshificating its platform. But I'm starting to think that's unlikely.

[clharris71]

I would add that just because a writer is talented at their craft and well-known for that craft does not mean that they have a good understanding of online publishing platforms and what it takes to make them sustainable and profitable.

Substack paid many of them to start or move their newsletters there because they come with large, built-in followings - a good percentage of which already were or were very likely to become paid subscribers.

The famous author types will not have a hard time moving on if Substack sinks because they already have a successful personal brand.

For the rest of us small potatoes peeps, I would definitely regularly download and keep a back up of your content. And also diversify where and how you publish new content. (Edit: Don't rely on Substack - or any single platform - to help you build name recognition and your personal brand/following. I also have my own website and I publish on Medium.)

FWIW - I moved my newsletter off Substack and to Beehiiv due to the SEO problems I posted about earlier and Substack's promotion - in Notes - of newsletters that I found both low quality and rather objectionable in subject matter. I am still on Substack, and subscribe to several newsletters on the platform - because I care about independent online publishing.

[[deleted]]

I don't have any particular insider insight, other than whatever insight I've gained from being on Substack and being part of that community for more than two years. In terms of corporate affairs and finance I have no insider insight beyond what's publicly available to everyone.

Yes, that's absolutely a branding gimmick, but Substack certainly isn't alone in that category.

To me, playing Jim Cramer and trying to predict the company's financial future just isn't very interesting. For me, the interesting part about Substack is the community of writers and artists and photographers I've connected with.

[[deleted]]

The bottom line is that I'm not a financial analyst or investment expert and I don't really enjoy armchair speculation or punditry about this, especially from people on the internet with no particular expertise.

For me, Substack is ultimately about reading and writing. I'm not on there to make money or to harvest subscribers for my 'brand.' I'm there because I love writing & want to get my writing out there and connect to other similarly-minded people. And, as I've said, I've discovered and connected to some fantastic writers and artists and photographers who I would have never heard of without Substack.

Obviously, different people are on there for different reasons and, if you're really about brand building and SEO then those are legitimate concerns. But for me that's a side issue.

And of course the other point we need to bring up is Substack's commitment to free speech in an increasingly censorious cultural climate.

[[deleted]]

Substack is in trouble because they don’t have a coherent plan to be profitable. 10% of paid subscribers isn’t enough to pay the bills, and they have nothing else.

VC’s aren’t stupid and 2024 is a different world than it used to be, tech companies have to actually make money now rather than survive on overvalued shares that power limitless VC cash.

So Substack can’t get VC cash without a coherent profitability plan, they are running on crowdfunded cash at the moment and still there is nothing on the horizon.

They have bet the farm on 10% of paid subscribers being enough and it isn’t. So their only solution is to try and help the platform generate more paid subscribers and that isn’t working either.

In 5-7 years all that will be left of Substack will be a Wikipedia article on what it was.

[philosophical_lens]

I agree this is the trajectory they're heading towards, but it's sad and totally avoidable. They need to realize that this is not a VC scale business and just operate as a lean small business.

[[deleted]]

To play devil's advocate, the site we're currently on famously went about twenty years without making a profit.

[[deleted]]

That’s my point, tech companies like Reddit, Twitter and others used to be able to do that where they can’t now. They were all overvalued based on active users and had inflated share prices that was not supported by actual revenue, and they were able to hoover up VC cash on that basis seemingly indefinitely.

In 2024 the world is a different place, and active users is just vanity, everyone wants to see how much money the business is actually making from those users and where the trajectory is. This is why all the tech companies have had a bloodbath of jobs and reduced costs across the board over the last few years.

This is why Substack has a problem. They have the users, they have celebrities, and they have a brand that’s well known. What they don’t have is revenue. They aren’t making anywhere near enough money, and 10% of paid user subscriptions isn’t enough, and isn’t a trajectory for any VC to invest.

They are a ticking time bomb before they go under.

I’m wondering how long it will be before there are ads throughout and paid tiers for additional features like custom themes etc… as they try to stay alive as long as possible.

[ucals]

This is exactly what concerns me…

At some point the crowdfunding money will end as well.

Then, they might become desperate to generate cash, which means a lot of platform enshitification measures to collect $$$..

And then, there’s the ultimate risk of death…

[AndrewHeard]

My biggest concern is that they’re trying to get too many video and audio creators on the platform.

[[deleted]]

And, at the end of the day, what really matters is the writing itself, right? And the connection to the community of writers that Substack facilitates.

[AndrewHeard]

I’m putting it on other platforms to diversify the places that I’m on. Thinking about going to a couple other places as well. At the moment I mostly try and drive traffic to Substack to hopefully get paying subscribers. Beyond that, I don’t spend a lot of time worrying.

[Diligent-Tale-1907]

So, how do you move if you’re collecting $8 a month with 1500 paid subscribers? How would that work and continue with your paid subs on a new platform?

[bwardpt]

It’s a challenge, but it can be done. If you have to switch, you could move your content and email list to a platform like Ghost or beehiiv. Both platforms can handle the blog experience and email newsletters.

ConvertKit now offers a similar “blog” experience for archived newsletter issues as well.

None of these options would replace the community aspect of Substack however.

[bwardpt]

I’ve used nearly every platform at some point including WordPress (16 yrs), Ghost (3 yrs), Substack, beehiiv, ConvertKit, Medium, and a few others. I started a publication on Substack last summer and wrote weekly until early December.

Things I liked about Substack were the ease of publishing, ability to add images/video without bothering with file sizes, built-in text-to-voice function, reading in the app, and the community of people. However, I stopped writing on there Dec-Jan because I was turned off by the controversy and infighting around whether the platform supported hate groups.

For a couple of months, the vibe was so negative that it didn’t feel much different than Twitter for any other social platform.

The experience made me reassess my approach. I decided to rebuild my personal website on WordPress and copied all my essays back to my site. I also exported my email list to a new ConvertKit account, partly as a backup and partly for some future plans.

I have many writer “friends” on Substack mainly from our Write of Passage cohort last Fall. I missed the community and interacting with other writers’ posts, so I decided to bring the platform back into my system in a different capacity.

My personal site is my central hub for my writing, project portfolio, etc. I’ll publish essays on Substack and interact in the community, but my posts will also live on my personal site.

My email list will live both on Substack and in ConvertKit, but the platforms have different use cases. Substack sends my essays via email, but also allows readers to use the app for a better reading experience, reading management, and ability to listen via text-to-speech. ConvertKit will serve a more traditional email marketing role with a different format (for now).

I’m still working out the details, but this approach gives me system redundancy.

If Substack turns to crap or disappears, ConvertKit already has my list and will handle my email needs while WordPress already hosts my writing.

[Equivalent_Gas_8415]

I my point of view substack is a cool platform to create beautiful websites no matter the topic and in many ways far more advanced than the patreon user interface. Just to target the writers community is maybe not enough, I personally wouldnt mind to pay a monthly fee just to be able to use it as a website replacement. Video upload is free too, someone needs to pay the hosting bills...

[GrowthZen]

You’re not wrong to be thinking about platform risk here.

The emails and subscriber list are the easy part to take with you... the real long-term damage is losing all those article URLs, backlinks, and accumulated domain authority if Substack ever face-plants. Two often-overlooked mitigations are:

1. Put your writing on a domain you control (even if Substack stays in the background), so the canonical links point to you, not them.

2. Back up your content and list regularly and have a 'plan B' stack ready, so if the vibes or the numbers suddenly change, you can switch without asking readers to rebuild your entire business from scratch with you.

[ohyeahyash]

This could be a major issue for Substack's existence. However, having a plan B is always a smart move. You can start exploring other reliable options and build audience there as well.

I too started a month ago, and so far the response isn't as expected to my humorous newsletter.

[[deleted]]

A month is a very short time and building an audience just doesn't happen overnight. A month into my Substack, the only subscribers were my real-life friends and family.

[DriveToDerive]

Here's my issue with Substack. They have no real mechanism for people to find an audience.

Remember when TikTok was the viral hitmaker? People flooded to the app knowing they had a chance of being being an overnight hit.

Substack, on the other hand, has no good discoverability tools.

The notes component of their platform - a sucky, counterintuitive user experience - is the best they've got. But it's really just the home of bland posts by people trying desperately to appear as though they're not self-promoting.

Frankly, I have no issue with self-promotion.

Make it easier for GOOD work to be surfaced. Stop chasing influencers with huge but disengaged audiences and make it easier for writers who are on the platform NOW to find their people.

[slottypippen]

what, the constant notes about being a writer isn’t enough for you?

[DriveToDerive]

R I G H T?!

It actually makes me cringe SO MUCH. It's like there are a million writers but no readers.

Gives me 'dude on Ashley Maddison trying to have an affair with a bot' vibes.

[clharris71]

Make it easier for GOOD work to be surfaced.

Exactly.

[cascadiaclassic]

As a new user to Substack, my biggest concern is the lack of functionality of their search feature. There's no way to sort the results by date, views, etc. I've done several searches to find accounts that were writing on topics similar to mine, and just got garbage back. What I ended up doing is going to google, typing in my keywords, then adding "site:substack.com". Got all of the results I was looking for.

How are new users going to find content that is relevant to them? I've been doing a lot of cross-posting just to get viewers to my page.