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I noticed this guy’s post after seeing him comment on a similar post today: https://on.substack.com/p/boomerang/comment/16218081 https://on.substack.com/p/boome

I noticed this guy’s post after seeing him comment on a similar post today: https://on.substack.com/p/boomerang/comment/16218081 https://on.substack.com/p/boomerang/comment/16218081 I thought it was useful to point out because it highlights the way that overly positive messaging comes off to people who aren’t seeing success with your tools. I don’t know the solution to this problem, but I think he raises some very valid points about getting too high on your own supply.

PaulHoule 3y ago
Substack has the serious problem that it gets almost all its revenue from two handfuls of superstars and any of them could afford to hire some web developers to hook up an e-mail newsletter script to a payment gateway and keep more money. These authors are promoting Substack and not the way around. In the end it leads to Twitter-style enshitification as opposed to Facebook or Google-style enshitification because it is not a matter of a greedy company feeling pressured to take more but rather a matter of a “situation that can’t go on won’t.”
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  The timing of your comment is uncanny: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35974037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35974037
- flappyeagle 3y ago
  They would need to hire a team for that. They are not going to run their own servers. Now they are distracted from writing. Back to substack they go.
  - mistermann 3y ago
    Remember Digg?
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    Superstar substackers make upward of $1M a year and can afford the team. Myself I developed a paid API gateway (oddly commercial API gateways that bribe bloggers to spam spam spam to promote themselves and have a huge marketing budget offer every feature other than charging to access your API) and an email newsletter script that ran serverless in AWS. Both have run for years without me looking at them. If they had a baby that would be a substack replacement. Quite a few ‘creator economy’ types who have had problems with the big platforms have struck out on their own like this guy https://www.combatvetnews.com/ https://www.combatvetnews.com/
    - jdminhbg 3y ago
      > Superstar substackers make upward of $1M a year and can afford the team. $1M means $100k in Substack take, how much of a team are you going to buy for that? Yes, you might be able to contract a team to set you up for less than that, but you might also not know what you're doing and contract a team that wastes $50k and doesn't deliver.
LegitShady 3y ago
You can click on his name and read some of his material, and then find out why he isn't getting any conversions. Not everyone who dreams of being a writer is writing something other people are interested in. Substack has problems and I don't use it or read anything on it regularly, but I don't think thats why that particular poster is having trouble.
- InitialLastName 3y ago
  Even if the writing were interesting (which, I can't rule out short-form serialized fictional therapy sessions being interesting to someone), it's a really bad fit for a blog promotion platform like substack. The way the posts end up arranged makes it actively difficult to get to the beginning and figure out what's going on, especially with indistinguishable titles.
  - shortformblog 3y ago
    I would argue the issues that both of you raise are rooted in the fact that there may not be enough hand-holding at the beginning of the newsletter building process.

PaulHoule 3y ago

Substack has the serious problem that it gets almost all its revenue from two handfuls of superstars and any of them could afford to hire some web developers to hook up an e-mail newsletter script to a payment gateway and keep more money. These authors are promoting Substack and not the way around. In the end it leads to Twitter-style enshitification as opposed to Facebook or Google-style enshitification because it is not a matter of a greedy company feeling pressured to take more but rather a matter of a “situation that can’t go on won’t.”

toomuchtodo 3y ago
The timing of your comment is uncanny: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35974037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35974037
flappyeagle 3y ago
They would need to hire a team for that. They are not going to run their own servers. Now they are distracted from writing. Back to substack they go.
- mistermann 3y ago
  Remember Digg?
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  Superstar substackers make upward of $1M a year and can afford the team. Myself I developed a paid API gateway (oddly commercial API gateways that bribe bloggers to spam spam spam to promote themselves and have a huge marketing budget offer every feature other than charging to access your API) and an email newsletter script that ran serverless in AWS. Both have run for years without me looking at them. If they had a baby that would be a substack replacement. Quite a few ‘creator economy’ types who have had problems with the big platforms have struck out on their own like this guy https://www.combatvetnews.com/ https://www.combatvetnews.com/
  - jdminhbg 3y ago
    > Superstar substackers make upward of $1M a year and can afford the team. $1M means $100k in Substack take, how much of a team are you going to buy for that? Yes, you might be able to contract a team to set you up for less than that, but you might also not know what you're doing and contract a team that wastes $50k and doesn't deliver.

LegitShady 3y ago

You can click on his name and read some of his material, and then find out why he isn't getting any conversions. Not everyone who dreams of being a writer is writing something other people are interested in. Substack has problems and I don't use it or read anything on it regularly, but I don't think thats why that particular poster is having trouble.

InitialLastName 3y ago
Even if the writing were interesting (which, I can't rule out short-form serialized fictional therapy sessions being interesting to someone), it's a really bad fit for a blog promotion platform like substack. The way the posts end up arranged makes it actively difficult to get to the beginning and figure out what's going on, especially with indistinguishable titles.
- shortformblog 3y ago
  I would argue the issues that both of you raise are rooted in the fact that there may not be enough hand-holding at the beginning of the newsletter building process.