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The way they used our search library is kind of interesting. They could've copied the code locally and modified it to work with the Substack API, but I

The way they used our search library is kind of interesting. They could've copied the code locally and modified it to work with the Substack API, but I guess Substack doesn’t have an API? Substack doesn't have an API. Their editor is laughably primitive compared with other solutions. Their visual look hasn't changed at all since their inception. They don't have discoverability. Can anyone tell me what Substack is doing with all the millions of dollars of funding they've taken? We joke about Twitter being massively overstaffed, but Substack, to me, looks just as bloated, organizationally.

xwowsersx 4y ago
Maybe you have something else in mind when you say "discoverability", but.. https://substack.com/discover https://substack.com/discover Seems they do have it. As for the bloat, I can't really comment, but would note that Substack did substantial layoffs like everyone else. As for what they're doing: they built mobile apps, adding podcasting and video, etc, better discoverability. I can't say whether they've done "enough" to satisfy you, but I also don't think we should pretend Substack hasn't done any new product development work since inception.
- quanticle 4y ago
  Those are all fair responses. I guess I just haven't seen much uptake of those new features among the Substack writers that I follow. When they do podcasts, they're hosted by ACast, SimpleCast, or one of the other podcast hosting platforms out there. Videos are hosted on YouTube (like everyone else's). I would prefer if Substack spent more resources on improving its "core" newsletter/blog experience, but I can understand, given their status as a home for controversial writers, their desire to be a self-contained service.
  - vxNsr 4y ago
    My understanding is that these days most technical people are wary of being locked into a single platform, so even though substack is making a pretty compelling walled garden anyone with knowledge of recent SV history is hesitant to dive head first into it. As once they get big enough they’re pretty much guaranteed to do something anti-competitive that is against the interests of their customers/users who now have no choice as the cost of leaving has grown too large.
  - soneca 4y ago
    They added comments, chat, an app for reading, sections. There is a lot happening in Substack core product. Edit: this looks like a good list for my standards: https://on.substack.com/p/product-news-dispatch-nov-22 https://on.substack.com/p/product-news-dispatch-nov-22 And Substack discoverability is becoming a big thing for writers. I know the impact from a lot of anedoctes.
  - sudars 4y ago
    I help with podcasts at Substack. Substack is a podcast-hosting platform like the others you describe (although in my biased opinion we have a number of other great features that set us apart). Most of the podcasts on Substack are hosted and distributed by Substack. A few Substack podcasts do point back at other platforms, but this isn't the norm. Writers can embed youtube videos in their posts. When they do, those are hosted on youtube. However, Substack also has our own hosted videos (see https://on.substack.com/p/video-on-substack https://on.substack.com/p/video-on-substack).
rchaud 4y ago
> Can anyone tell me what Substack is doing with all the millions of dollars of funding they've taken? Padding the paycheques of America's biggest contrarian writers apparently. Greenwald, Taibbi, Andrew Sullivan all have paid gigs there.
- jdm2212 4y ago
  They don't have "paid gigs" there. They bring in tons of subscription revenue, and Substack gave them advances against that subscription revenue. In each case, they quickly earned out the advance.
  - bgentry 4y ago
    Are you sure that any of those three got an advance from Substack? They don’t appear in any of the articles listing authors with paid advances except in providing commentary about the existence of such a system. They might have all even joined before Substack had its advance program. You are otherwise correct about them not having a “paid gig”. They each built their own large paid subscriber base from which Substack takes a 10% cut. They pay Substack for the service, not the other way around.
  - burkaman 4y ago
    In addition to advances they will sometimes just pay a writer to move to Substack. > But the advances also had limitations. On a per-deal basis, we could never really do better than break-even. A Substack advance was effectively an interest-free loan that would never be paid back if a publication failed. > With Substack Pro, we pay a writer an upfront sum to cover their first year on the platform. The idea is that the payment can be more attractive to a writer than a salary, so they don’t have to stay in a job (or take one) that’s less interesting to them than being independent. In return for that financial security, a Pro writer agrees to let Substack keep 85% of the subscription revenue in that first year. After that year, the deal flips, so that the writer no longer gets a minimum guarantee but from then on keeps 90% of the subscription revenue - https://on.substack.com/p/why-we-pay-writers https://on.substack.com/p/why-we-pay-writers Depending on the payment it's possible that a writer could lose money on this, because they would have made more from subscriptions than they did from Substack, but I'm guessing for very big names Substack is paying quite a bit more than they would have made from their first year of subscriptions. Also, this wasn't public for a while and there's probably more that is still not public. > We haven’t said anything about Substack Pro in public until now because we have been in a “figuring it out” phase, seeing what resonates with writers and how the deals perform over time.
wpietri 4y ago
> Can anyone tell me what Substack is doing with all the millions of dollars of funding they've taken? Last I looked, a bunch of it was going to pay writers to publish on Substack: https://www.vox.com/recode/22338802/substack-pro-newsletter-controversy-jude-doyle https://www.vox.com/recode/22338802/substack-pro-newsletter-...
nonameiguess 4y ago
They paid writers. The quality of the content is ultimately a lot more important than the technology used to deliver it.
ohgodplsno 4y ago
But how else are they going to advertise that horribly full of themselves writers with subjects as interesting as How The Silicob Valley Accepted Me As Its Child And How I Made My First Million (contents: a load of self serving crap oh and also my dad is a millionaire and used his connections for me) are now writing on Substack? It's just another Medium, except for some reason the writers there are _even more_ pompous and full of themselves.
lzaaz 4y ago
>Their visual look hasn't changed at all since their inception. I don't like that you are suggesting that the visual look must change. Nothing is wrong with leaving things the way they are. >They don't have discoverability. What does this mean? Suggested posts and authors, which are nothing but thinly-veiled ads so you stay in the page? Good that they don't have those.

xwowsersx 4y ago

Maybe you have something else in mind when you say "discoverability", but.. https://substack.com/discover https://substack.com/discover Seems they do have it. As for the bloat, I can't really comment, but would note that Substack did substantial layoffs like everyone else. As for what they're doing: they built mobile apps, adding podcasting and video, etc, better discoverability. I can't say whether they've done "enough" to satisfy you, but I also don't think we should pretend Substack hasn't done any new product development work since inception.

quanticle 4y ago
Those are all fair responses. I guess I just haven't seen much uptake of those new features among the Substack writers that I follow. When they do podcasts, they're hosted by ACast, SimpleCast, or one of the other podcast hosting platforms out there. Videos are hosted on YouTube (like everyone else's). I would prefer if Substack spent more resources on improving its "core" newsletter/blog experience, but I can understand, given their status as a home for controversial writers, their desire to be a self-contained service.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  My understanding is that these days most technical people are wary of being locked into a single platform, so even though substack is making a pretty compelling walled garden anyone with knowledge of recent SV history is hesitant to dive head first into it. As once they get big enough they’re pretty much guaranteed to do something anti-competitive that is against the interests of their customers/users who now have no choice as the cost of leaving has grown too large.
- soneca 4y ago
  They added comments, chat, an app for reading, sections. There is a lot happening in Substack core product. Edit: this looks like a good list for my standards: https://on.substack.com/p/product-news-dispatch-nov-22 https://on.substack.com/p/product-news-dispatch-nov-22 And Substack discoverability is becoming a big thing for writers. I know the impact from a lot of anedoctes.
- sudars 4y ago
  I help with podcasts at Substack. Substack is a podcast-hosting platform like the others you describe (although in my biased opinion we have a number of other great features that set us apart). Most of the podcasts on Substack are hosted and distributed by Substack. A few Substack podcasts do point back at other platforms, but this isn't the norm. Writers can embed youtube videos in their posts. When they do, those are hosted on youtube. However, Substack also has our own hosted videos (see https://on.substack.com/p/video-on-substack https://on.substack.com/p/video-on-substack).

rchaud 4y ago

> Can anyone tell me what Substack is doing with all the millions of dollars of funding they've taken? Padding the paycheques of America's biggest contrarian writers apparently. Greenwald, Taibbi, Andrew Sullivan all have paid gigs there.

jdm2212 4y ago
They don't have "paid gigs" there. They bring in tons of subscription revenue, and Substack gave them advances against that subscription revenue. In each case, they quickly earned out the advance.
- bgentry 4y ago
  Are you sure that any of those three got an advance from Substack? They don’t appear in any of the articles listing authors with paid advances except in providing commentary about the existence of such a system. They might have all even joined before Substack had its advance program. You are otherwise correct about them not having a “paid gig”. They each built their own large paid subscriber base from which Substack takes a 10% cut. They pay Substack for the service, not the other way around.
- burkaman 4y ago
  In addition to advances they will sometimes just pay a writer to move to Substack. > But the advances also had limitations. On a per-deal basis, we could never really do better than break-even. A Substack advance was effectively an interest-free loan that would never be paid back if a publication failed. > With Substack Pro, we pay a writer an upfront sum to cover their first year on the platform. The idea is that the payment can be more attractive to a writer than a salary, so they don’t have to stay in a job (or take one) that’s less interesting to them than being independent. In return for that financial security, a Pro writer agrees to let Substack keep 85% of the subscription revenue in that first year. After that year, the deal flips, so that the writer no longer gets a minimum guarantee but from then on keeps 90% of the subscription revenue - https://on.substack.com/p/why-we-pay-writers https://on.substack.com/p/why-we-pay-writers Depending on the payment it's possible that a writer could lose money on this, because they would have made more from subscriptions than they did from Substack, but I'm guessing for very big names Substack is paying quite a bit more than they would have made from their first year of subscriptions. Also, this wasn't public for a while and there's probably more that is still not public. > We haven’t said anything about Substack Pro in public until now because we have been in a “figuring it out” phase, seeing what resonates with writers and how the deals perform over time.

wpietri 4y ago

> Can anyone tell me what Substack is doing with all the millions of dollars of funding they've taken? Last I looked, a bunch of it was going to pay writers to publish on Substack: https://www.vox.com/recode/22338802/substack-pro-newsletter-controversy-jude-doyle https://www.vox.com/recode/22338802/substack-pro-newsletter-...

nonameiguess 4y ago

They paid writers. The quality of the content is ultimately a lot more important than the technology used to deliver it.

ohgodplsno 4y ago

But how else are they going to advertise that horribly full of themselves writers with subjects as interesting as How The Silicob Valley Accepted Me As Its Child And How I Made My First Million (contents: a load of self serving crap oh and also my dad is a millionaire and used his connections for me) are now writing on Substack? It's just another Medium, except for some reason the writers there are _even more_ pompous and full of themselves.

lzaaz 4y ago

>Their visual look hasn't changed at all since their inception. I don't like that you are suggesting that the visual look must change. Nothing is wrong with leaving things the way they are. >They don't have discoverability. What does this mean? Suggested posts and authors, which are nothing but thinly-veiled ads so you stay in the page? Good that they don't have those.