The problem with Substack is they'll never make enough revenue to cover all the VC expectations they raised without turning into a network effects/semi-walled-g

The problem with Substack is they'll never make enough revenue to cover all the VC expectations they raised without turning into a network effects/semi-walled-garden social media platform. They just don't know it yet. You can see this dilemma first hand in that email they spammed everyone with today. It starts by saying: "Unlike most other online media platforms, we don’t seek to lock our customers into a walled garden by controlling their relationship with their audience" Yet, at the end of the same email they tout the benefits of their walled garden and customer lock-in: "37% of my paying subscribers had existing Substack accounts. 27% had saved credit cards on the Substack system, which made it a one-click experience to sign up for my paid newsletter. 11% came from platform features like Substack leaderboards, recommendations, or promotions." So which is it? Are you an open platform, or are you a network effects business pedaling access to that network for a 10% cut? The evidence is clear when you look under the hood. Substack won't allow you to recommend any non-Substack publication on their growth widgets. They try to get readers to download the Substack app to fully own the eyeballs that creators bring them. They've even launched a Twitter competitor. They're not building some non-profit open protocol here...and that's okay! Let's just stop pretending otherwise. Personally, I think Substack should lean fully into becoming the next Twitter and stop trying to play the "good guy" card. Shut off custom domains and fully own the traffic like they're trying to do anyways. If they were to lean into the walled-garden social aspects, maybe the platform wouldn't have looked so rudderless to investors and they wouldn't have failed to raise their last round.