3 ms·

I think the complaint is that Substack is incentivized to make things worse for readers by constantly prompting them to subscribe, encouraging authors to paywal

I think the complaint is that Substack is incentivized to make things worse for readers by constantly prompting them to subscribe, encouraging authors to paywall content and insert subscription ads into their articles, etc. They might be tempted to include dark patterns that make it hard to unsubscribe or something, because every paid subscriber is more money for them. Since Ghost gets paid regardless of who subscribes, readers only feel this pressure if they author decides they want more subscribers. Free and paid subscribers count the same, so there's no temptation to obfuscate anything or make subscription management less straightforward. That's my interpretation, I don't necessarily agree that one is more sustainable than the other but I think that's what they're talking about.

freddie_mercury 3y ago
> Since Ghost gets paid regardless of who subscribe This isn't true. If you have over 500 subscribers, Ghost charges you more per month. When you go above 1,000 subscribers, there's another price tier. Then there's another tier at 10,000 subscribers. I don't want to say they are exactly equivalent to Substack because they aren't. But Ghost gets more money if there are more subscribers.
- burkaman 3y ago
  Yes sorry it's confusing terminology, what I meant is they get paid regardless of your number of paid subscribers. The price tiers apply to both free and paid readers, so if you pass 1000 free subscribers you move up to the next tier. There's no major incentive for them to encourage readers to pay authors, that's up to the author. See the FAQ (https://ghost.org/pricing/ https://ghost.org/pricing/): "Every user with an active account to subscribe to emails or login to your site counted as a member, whether free or paid."