> - MOST people will not want to pay for articles. Especially in an ever increasing world of subscription payments across tv, music, SaaS, I really don’t see ho

> - MOST people will not want to pay for articles. Especially in an ever increasing world of subscription payments across tv, music, SaaS, I really don’t see how email newsletters will be high on people’s lists I've subscribed to three Substack newsletters. A lot of other people have too. A 90% cut of the fee is netting some writers - including some not super-popular writers - a living wage, and for very popular writers, a *LOT* of money. Writing is not generally well paid; at a 90% cut, it doesn't take a lot of $5/month subscriptions to exceed what traditional media can pay. > - for the quality writers that people do want to pay, they will eventually move off the platform if it makes sense to do so (ie they get their brand recognition and followers and then jump ship to their own website). For the smaller ones, patreon onlyfans or some other direct contribution model would make more sense IMO Onlyfans has a stigma of being for porn, Patreon has a host of problems, takes a pretty high cut as well, and has a poor UI for this. Substack is objectively much better. You're right that it would probably make sense for the super-stars to jump to a cheaper platform, but there's also wide scope for them to negotiate better deals. > So I really don’t get Substack’s model and how it can be successful long term unless it truly becomes the landing page Taking 10% of a bunch of money for a pretty lightweight tool seems like a good business model to me. Can they keep those margins going? It's not implausible. The 10% Substack takes for, essentially, hosting is really high if you compare it to the $X/month you'd need for a hosted blog or VPS + Cloudflare, but it's very, very low when you compare it to the cut a traditional publisher takes. As so often, a lot depends on framing and how people compare the deal being offered. > I’m much more of a fan of the Medium model I've never paid Medium money, I will never pay Medium money, I don't understand why people pay Medium money, and I don't know anyone who has, is, or likely will pay Medium money. The Medium model, to me, seems to be an attempt to copy the traditional non-working model, without even an attempt to fix it. I can see why people might be fans of the concept, but it seems crystal clear to me that it represents the dead past, currently kept alive as a shambling zombie by VC money. Substack, maybe, is the future. And contrary to your assertions, does NOT seem to be burning VC money to bring it about. They seem to be coming out ahead on the Substack Pro advances, after all.