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With a title like that, you'd think the article would make a more obvious enumeration of the reasons Substack might not be the future we want. Instead it spends

With a title like that, you'd think the article would make a more obvious enumeration of the reasons Substack might not be the future we want. Instead it spends most of its time in a declarative, historian's voice. But while the author drops a few implications along the way, it's not really until the fifth or so paragraph from the end do they finally reveal a more concrete suspicion: > A robust press is essential to a functioning democracy, and a cultural turn toward journalistic individualism might not be in the collective interest. It is expensive and laborious to hold powerful people and institutions to account, and, at many media organizations, any given article is the result of collaboration between writers, editors, copy editors, fact checkers, and producers. Dunno, it kinda seems like wondering if there can be room for a multi-million dollar HBO special like Game of Thrones in a world where niche Patreon creators are making thousands of dollars. I guess we don't even need analogy: how do paid niche blogs (which is a far more accurate description of Substack than "premium newsletters") threaten large publications? But to answer their question: yes, I think Substack is definitely part of the future we want. For years we've wondered if we could back out of our ad-driven internet economy where small players had no shot at making a living if they couldn't attract ad dollars. We've brainstormed so much about what that could even look like. Then platforms like Patreon and Substack popped up and demonstrated what a lot of us assumed was impossible: people opening their wallet to support an individual. Looks like there actually is a way through this ad-driven mess.

nine_k 6y ago
More glaringly, a piece with a title like that in a major media outlet lays bare an obvious conflict of interest. "No, not the future you want."
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  I was ready for some interesting points about the downsides of Substack. But reading the article, especially with the 15(!!) inset ads and the Creative Cloud sidebar ad that followed me the whole length of the article, I realized how hard it is to damn Substack with anything that doesn't pale in comparison to ad-captured traditional media.
SllX 6y ago
> But to answer their question: yes, I think Substack is definitely part of the future we want. You wrote what I wanted to. Substack is an enabling technology, and functionally replaces the printer that magazines like the New Yorker use to physically print their magazine before sending them out to readers via USPS (instead of email) or to bookstores. They also picked a very good payment processor in Stripe, another enabling technology that functionally replaces the physical terminals you would get from Square or First Data. In the long term I might be concerned about Substack if they take on too much VC money and try to go the full Medium route. In the short term, concerning yourself with Substack is like concerning yourself with what kind of printers that a book publisher uses. A printer can be technically interesting, but ultimately it does the job you ask of it.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  What excites me about Patreon and Substack is the underlying cultural shift that makes them possible. 10 years ago, users of a free service I run urged me to put up a Paypal donation button like they were dying to throw money at me. After months of urging, I finally did. ...I received so little in donations that I refunded the money. Last year, my users urged me to put up a Patreon and, expecting the worst, I finally did it. The service isn't nearly as popular as it was 10 years ago, yet they've committed $300+/month which is enough to at least pay for some of my time to improve the service, a service I considered taking down. It's hard to overstate what's going on here. There are avenues opening up just when I thought, yesterday, that they closed off for good. Just like Adsense created a content renaissance that let small creators (on a couple mediums) make a living, it might not be overstating it to say that we're seeing the next one, this time with direct, recurring (important!) funding. Aside, I wonder what the historian's analysis of the cultural shift would look like mapped out. I wouldn't be surprised if Twitch was the lynchpin in normalizing direct contribution.

nine_k 6y ago

More glaringly, a piece with a title like that in a major media outlet lays bare an obvious conflict of interest. "No, not the future you want."

hombre_fatal 6y ago
I was ready for some interesting points about the downsides of Substack. But reading the article, especially with the 15(!!) inset ads and the Creative Cloud sidebar ad that followed me the whole length of the article, I realized how hard it is to damn Substack with anything that doesn't pale in comparison to ad-captured traditional media.

SllX 6y ago

> But to answer their question: yes, I think Substack is definitely part of the future we want. You wrote what I wanted to. Substack is an enabling technology, and functionally replaces the printer that magazines like the New Yorker use to physically print their magazine before sending them out to readers via USPS (instead of email) or to bookstores. They also picked a very good payment processor in Stripe, another enabling technology that functionally replaces the physical terminals you would get from Square or First Data. In the long term I might be concerned about Substack if they take on too much VC money and try to go the full Medium route. In the short term, concerning yourself with Substack is like concerning yourself with what kind of printers that a book publisher uses. A printer can be technically interesting, but ultimately it does the job you ask of it.

hombre_fatal 6y ago
What excites me about Patreon and Substack is the underlying cultural shift that makes them possible. 10 years ago, users of a free service I run urged me to put up a Paypal donation button like they were dying to throw money at me. After months of urging, I finally did. ...I received so little in donations that I refunded the money. Last year, my users urged me to put up a Patreon and, expecting the worst, I finally did it. The service isn't nearly as popular as it was 10 years ago, yet they've committed $300+/month which is enough to at least pay for some of my time to improve the service, a service I considered taking down. It's hard to overstate what's going on here. There are avenues opening up just when I thought, yesterday, that they closed off for good. Just like Adsense created a content renaissance that let small creators (on a couple mediums) make a living, it might not be overstating it to say that we're seeing the next one, this time with direct, recurring (important!) funding. Aside, I wonder what the historian's analysis of the cultural shift would look like mapped out. I wouldn't be surprised if Twitch was the lynchpin in normalizing direct contribution.