5 ms·

Medium’s failure was rather simple. Medium put paywalls in front of blogs. Blogs were supposed to be an open medium. I don’t think anybody really wanted that.

flappyeagle 4y ago
Substack puts paywalls in front of blogs. It works. Medium failed because their execution was poor.
- bediger4000 4y ago
  Medium worked for a while. The question is will Substack suffer the fate?
  - sascha_sl 4y ago
    It's a different time. Substack has quite a big creator audience of outrage merchants that monetize writing things you're (allegedly) "not allowed to say", to an audience that happily pays to keep their favourites engaged in the shovelware equivalent of culture war opinion pieces. I'm sure you can think of one no matter your political affiliation.
    - bediger4000 4y ago
      That sounds like a strategy that will work for a time. I remember 7-8 years ago, when Medium was putatively accruing all the good content, and then gradually paywalling it. Subscriptions don't seem to work for most sites, so I'm anticipating Substack undergoing a slow death like Medium.
- spicymaki 4y ago
  Substack is monetizing newsletters which are somewhat different than the traditional blog. Blogs are more informal with no commitment to publishing frequency. Blogs have no barrier to entry and are monetized via an advertising model. Monetizing a blog with a paywall is dumb, because it increases the friction of people reading your content. Usually you blog to build a profile, which you can't do if you erect barriers to your audience. Monetizing newsletters makes more sense because you already know who and what you are paying for. Substack poached high profile journalists and bloggers to write newsletters for their platform. They paid upfront. That said, I don't know if Substack is making enough revenue to survive long term. They only made $9M on a $650M valuation last year. There seems to be increasing burnout with news engagement these days due to years of outrage and disappointment.

flappyeagle 4y ago

Substack puts paywalls in front of blogs. It works. Medium failed because their execution was poor.

bediger4000 4y ago
Medium worked for a while. The question is will Substack suffer the fate?
- sascha_sl 4y ago
  It's a different time. Substack has quite a big creator audience of outrage merchants that monetize writing things you're (allegedly) "not allowed to say", to an audience that happily pays to keep their favourites engaged in the shovelware equivalent of culture war opinion pieces. I'm sure you can think of one no matter your political affiliation.
  - bediger4000 4y ago
    That sounds like a strategy that will work for a time. I remember 7-8 years ago, when Medium was putatively accruing all the good content, and then gradually paywalling it. Subscriptions don't seem to work for most sites, so I'm anticipating Substack undergoing a slow death like Medium.
spicymaki 4y ago
Substack is monetizing newsletters which are somewhat different than the traditional blog. Blogs are more informal with no commitment to publishing frequency. Blogs have no barrier to entry and are monetized via an advertising model. Monetizing a blog with a paywall is dumb, because it increases the friction of people reading your content. Usually you blog to build a profile, which you can't do if you erect barriers to your audience. Monetizing newsletters makes more sense because you already know who and what you are paying for. Substack poached high profile journalists and bloggers to write newsletters for their platform. They paid upfront. That said, I don't know if Substack is making enough revenue to survive long term. They only made $9M on a $650M valuation last year. There seems to be increasing burnout with news engagement these days due to years of outrage and disappointment.