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They benefit by promoting the authors who publish there, because they get a cut of paid subscriptions. They heavily encourage authors to do things to try to get
by skybrian 4y ago
They benefit by promoting the authors who publish there, because they get a cut of paid subscriptions. They heavily encourage authors to do things to try to get as many subscribers as possible. The defaults are set up to try to get people to enter their email address.
This is incentive-compatible if you’re a professional writer who is trying to make money through paid subscriptions. It’s a bit annoying if you just want to have a blog because you have to turn that stuff off. It’s not hard to configure, though.
- bastawhiz 4y agoSending posts as email does nothing to get you more subscribers because it only sends to people who are subscribers already.
- skybrian 4y agoYes. But if they're not paid subscribers, there's an opportunity to upsell. If people forget about reading your blog, they're unlikely to want to pay for it. Also, if they're regular readers then they're more likely to share links elsewhere on the Internet.
- bastawhiz 4y agoI have a Substack with nearly 700 subscribers. I don't even have an option to pay for it. Nothing about the email feature increases the likelihood of Substack making money from my subscribers.
- skybrian 4y agoLike you, I have no plans to charge money for my blog. Substack doesn't seem to care about making money from us. But a lot of Substack's features are targeted towards professional writers who make money from paid subscriptions, giving Substack a cut. We're just along for the ride, so we get those features too.