Who Gets a Paying Audience?

Why Substack, Medium, and other platforms purporting an egalitarian message but a for-profit model drives us into an early grave. Does it have to?

**Deep breath**

Let me start by squeezing your hands. Especially all you chain-smoking, eye-rolling, bruised-and brow-beaten fellow cynical sickos. You in the back, I can hear your scoffs! You were disillusioned long ago to the promises of yet another platform heralding yet another holy land for creatives, and rightly so.

Bear with me!

Last week I shared what I figured would be a relatable albeit inconspicuous note on a Substack quirk that frankly bums me out. (You can skim it here.) Namely, how On Substack’s Writer Stories consistently features writers doing their thang on here with wicked financial success. Upon further reading though, you discover these writers almost always Pied Piper’d a pre-existing audience over to their Substack, and that audience — usually in the thousands — constitutes their shiny paid subscribers queue.

Writer Stories provides an intuitive segment on a platform self-purporting to be today’s irrigative answer for the drying landscape that is writersmakingaliving™️. Substack is positioned — and arguably fairly — as an egalitarian platform, the medium giving compensation, credence, and equity back into the hands of actual consistent creatives.

Emphasis here on egalitarian. Shoutout to

Ramya Yandava

for lending my often oatmeal brain an elevated word for Substack’s own brand ledge.

Ramya is one of many people I’ll be shouting out in here. Because I mean it when I say that note, and its 28+ reply contributions, littered thought seeds sprouting into convo gardens that were nuanced and honest and direct and vulnerable and what da heck are we doing here if not that?? This single note spurred discussions with more people in a 24 hour span than I’ve probably spoken to, cumulatively, IRL, in an entire week. This is not an exaggeration.

It was exciting and stirring and thought provoking and it made my pits sweat. Thanks to it, we need to have a real conversation.

Yes, this is going to be one of *those* self-referential posts on Substack. No, really, we need to talk about it.

On Substack’s Writer Stories recently spotlighted Bob Dunning. Dunning is a seasoned columnist and charming essayist with decades of life experience tucked in his pockets. It’s evident! His writing balances levity with poignancy, like a beloved neighbor winking an inside joke your way at the neighborhood block party.

Now go ahead and take a look at the stupid title they plucked from one of his well-meaning quotes cheap-framing his entire interview:

‘It’s like getting a raise every single day’

I can’t speak for Dunning. I can only speak for myself (and even here I change my mind so much I’m not an entirely reliable spokesperson) when I say this was a pretty gross, pretty weird, pretty tone deaf in-this-economy™️ spin on an otherwise well-intentioned feature.

Per impressions from

Zoe Paskett

, and

Courtney Waller

, and

Lirpa Strike

, and and and and and…I don’t think Substack understands how these stories land.

It doesn’t need to. Substack has other priorities and those priorities come cemented as a for-profit **tech** app which came to market offering something syncretically refreshing but operates business-foot forward.

I know, I know. What’s new? Why tf is this groundbreaking? We’ve all read enough satirical and serious discourse on this very platform about this very platform to be oh-so naive. What exactly did you expect hitching on the bandwagon here, Ames? For a Silicon Valley based social media platform to somehow be altruistic with its motives, fair with its algorithms, and transparent with its workings?

Yeah. I guess I kinda did. Apparently, I’m not alone.

We’re allowed to admit this. We’re allowed to get candid about being let down in a sea of let downs that is trying to make a living as a writer. And not, ya know, not be painted as a bunch of dunces for it.

I appreciate the reminder to be careful to not make any of this seem pointed at Dunning, truly. However, I’m fairly confident this person 1) Needs a hug 2) Needs reminding users don’t need 1k+ subscribers to somehow get an opinion 3) Did not engage fully with the note or the subsequent dozens of comments championing Dunning while making it clear *Substack’s* operational complexities are the source of tension.

Deep down most of us recognize compromising and frustrating realities of participating on this funny little platform. We also know what we’re doing is hard. Being a writer is to constantly broker delusion with practicality. I’m here to have a good-faith conversation, popcorned off the overwhelmingly good faith, buttery thoughts smartie strangers on the internet spent time sharing with me. I can’t stop thinking about how we can, and fucking should — without getting shamed — call all sides of this tricky spade a spade. Meaning writers come to these platforms negotiating wants versus needs versus realities, self versus audience, paid versus purity, craft versus compulsion. All the while none of these things are mutually exclusive. I certainly don’t want to contribute to some whiny, naive perpetuation of how a for-profit platform like Substack works, but I also want us to be able to get nuanced about all the factors at play here, and not feel so cagey about it at the end of the day.

Thanks, branding!

Stop number one on the Substack Complexity Express™️ has to be its business model versus its branding.

Substack's tagline, “A new economic engine for culture,” is a lot like a kindergarten classroom’s show-and-tell in that it cutesy-dutesy says a lot without really saying much at all.

Hell yeah,

Robin Cangie (she/her)

, go off here:

The crux of the confusion congeals around how Substack broadcasts itself (rather loftily, rather romantically ) against how it kinda has to operate. It’s no doubt a place for readers, writers, thinkers, tinkerers. It’s beautiful to build a real, ultra-accessible, un-gatekept place for talented creatives to put themselves out there, with a built-in pay model should you choose it. It’s beautiful to be the idyllic Shire library of the internet. Maybe for a time it really was that way.

But I think we’re all a little fatigued at Substack’s continual spin that folks who come on here with an existing platform are as inspiring to us as those building a platform on here day by day, grassroots style, with sweat on our brows and dirt in our fingernails. Much to

Daniel Jacoby

’s point:

This leads to the next stop on this mixy messy all aboard Express™️…

Thanks, algorithms!

There’s no lack theories on how the ever-evolving, ever-listening, Gollum-sneaky algorithms do their thang across social media platforms. Substack is no exception.

“You have to make it to 100 subscribers, then your content is more likely to be picked up for leaderboards.”
“You have to pull X many new subscribers every month.”
"You have to niche down. Like, really niche.”
“You have to convert free —> paid subscribers at a 5-10% rate.”
“You have to post daily notes.”
“You have to sacrifice your first born under a full moon to Gregorian chant recordings created and produced on vinyl by Enya.”

None of us users truly know what Substack’s algorithms sniff out, dust off, reward. They certainly ain’t telling us.

Thank you,

CansaFis Foote

, for the chuckle. Also thank you for pointing out potentials at work feeding this beast in ways that may leave an even more sour taste in the mouths of folks just working for crumbs. Most of us write because we want and need to, but edit, polish, and digitally move with a mind toward the larger digital context, then feel scummy for doing so, and pretend we don’t to virtue signaling our purity, all the while envying those stories of folks who explode to Substack stardom seemingly overnight. Woof!  

I even noticed algorithm Loki-esque mischief at play in my notes’ own comments. People’s replies kept showing up in a different order regardless of who linearly chimed in first. I wondered if this was the algorithm at work, if it was dependent on using my phone or my laptop, dependent on time of day, dependent on my own replies, etc. etc. etc. Every other refresh seemed to stir a different presentation — and at the time of writing this, still very much does. I then wondered if the algorithm just gives credence to comments from folks with the biggest platforms. The responses most consistently floating to the top of the entire reply thread (though not always) are those with verified checkmarks next to their names. Which becomes more conversation-worthy once you note m’boy

Gunnar

was both the very first smartie of 28+ smarties to comment, and his note still carries the most likes, yet he cycles up and down and all around every time I check this dang thing. Are likes and expediency not powerful algorithmic signals? Honestly, whatdaheck™️ is going on here?

Thanks, money!

Substack is a for profit business. It (currently) ((openly?)) does not support sponsorships, paid posts, or ads.

Instead, it backlights its most quantitative heavy lifters, i.e. Substackers with the highest grossing paid subscriber counts, because it makes its money off every single one of its users’ paid subscriptions. (A 10% cut specifically, from any payment sent to users.) Substack wants folks with a pre-existing audience to mosey on over to the rave because that’s how they skim a bigger, faster cover charge. This isn’t profound, but it’s profoundly important to keep sensibly cataloged, and well-summarized by

Noah Berlatsky

:

I doubt many of us dive into Substack’s own newsletters naive to the realities that a for-profit platform wants more money. Or that, to Noah’s point, or to

Michael O'Neill

’s below, they’re not even always marketing to us small folk. I’ve certainly never read a single blurb on here where someone’s expressing contempt at Substack for taking its cut — I certainly don’t! That’s the game. Dems da rules. Frankly, it’s still a whole lot superior of a platform next to most comparable, ad-based interfaces. That’s okay to say, too.

It’s worth repeating yet again how Dunning is a gorgeous veteran writer with moving life experiences. F yeah, he should make over $100k in less than six months on here, as his spotlight makes sure to wave and point at. But Substack using its Writer Stories to continually feed fantastical narratives which somehow seem more to center itself, and choosing talented establishment over talented indie creators actually carving space diligently and organically on its own dang medium, and then charging them all equally, is, well, brow furrowing. We can say that. We should say that. I don’t think users expressing disillusionment is any distasteful, fourth-wall betrayal that justifies us receiving cynical ridicule or told to get the fook off the app. If said platform purports to serve the wider public culturally and economically but patterns its best resources for those already at the top regardless of what they actually contribute here, it’s not living up to its own promise.

Where we each stands in this tug-of-war matters, but itself can feel inherently conflicting. Many of us migrate here with some candle flame hope to make a lil money. Many of us don’t. Again, let’s talk about this. Some of us articulate thoughtfully and movingly on why they refuse to play the Paid Game™️ because it feels creatively and mentally compromising, as

Tom Pendergast

shared in his comment and details in his resonating explanation from last year. Others openly discuss going paid from day one because they want compensation for their labor. Others sit somewhere in between, maintaining the unique pledge support option until reaching a predetermined subscriber goal.

I personally have paid on. It’s an understatement to say I’m honored when someone shells out their hard-earned dough to feed and water me this way. It’s not an understatement to say I also feel guilty, if not a little ashamed, by how happy it makes me when I nab a Paid supporter. And still there’s a third voice in me that says cut the crap. Feel everything you feel. Talk openly about this dance, this exchange. I don’t find alleviation in packaging my entire creative self strictly to one side or another, or guilting others for their choice. Nor is my ‘stack in any numerical position to drive me mad appealing to some faceless patron mass. I’m happy, I’m sad, I’m frustrated, I’m lucky, I’m grateful, I’m confused, I keep on keepin’ on. That’s most of us.

Thanks, Obama!!

Jk. No politics today. (There’s plenty of political Substack du jour stewing around already, from quippier and smarter folks.)

Thanks, madness!!!

In what’s maybe my favorite snippet from the whole feature (and I’m still trying to block out that title), Dunning drops this hot-and-fresh-out-the-oven muffin musing:

“My paper allowed me to work from home. It was the 1970s, without the internet, and family was always my first priority in life. Your stomach tells you before your brain does.”

“Your stomach tells you before your brain does.”

This is such a lovely pearl of wisdom. It also umbrellas perfectly many of our own predicaments feeling ever-torn between a heart wishing for our audience to grow and get paid, a head telling us that probably won’t happen, and a gut — a gut aching somewhere in between. Per

Alex Muka

and his absolutely bangin’ alliterative newsletter name:

Or maybe we just make ourselves medicinally detached from it all, a la

Lyle McKeany

and

Liz | Space Breathwork

style. Or just embrace

Tyagarajan S

’s comedic sanity. Can you blame anyone for trotting down these routes? I can’t. This shit’s hard.

It seems obvious Substack’s business model aligns with the wider entanglement of tech brands prioritizing engagement metrics + time-on-platform maximization + ever-audience growth = profit. I don’t even know how useful it is to rail much more against this. What can be railed against is how they don’t seem to look us in the eyes and own it. Instead, it’s a delta of feel-good waters promoting new features and sustainable earnings finally for writers. All the while the currents don’t seem to trickle down.

It’s fair to call this rigamarole some kind of corporate gaslighty double-speak lite™️. (Uh oh! Therapy speak! There’s a lot of that on Substack, too.) A fish swimming in icky water calling out said icky water shouldn’t be told to shut up because that’s the best pond they’ll ever get, even if that’s kinda true. What does that say about our ability to hold multiple competing but valid truths, to act most days without full decision confidence, even our obsession with respectability politics?

In all this, I’m calling on people to be honest while also realizing a certain core reserve of romanticism, even delulu, is necessary to nuclear power perpetual creative outputs regardless of audience size.

An overwhelming number of comments seem to get this. To really get this. So why do we do this to each other, staying cagey with our confusion, pretending this writer maze hasn’t been dizzying? That our knees, from many falls, haven’t been skinned?

A final (functional) note before I shut up (for now)

A lot of folks pointed out the Bob Dunnings of the world have put in the Damn Werk™️. This is accurate, and something I should have made spit-shined clear in my original note.

Dunning, like so many others, spent decades pounding the print pavement writing his local newspaper column. His labor was grossly underpaid, and he was a single dad for much of it — difficulties Substack’s interview rightly calls attention to.

Dunnings did the work. Dunnings built his following. Then he was laid off, wrote a moving piece about the layoff, put it on Substack, and it very literally blew up overnight. Substack gets rightful credit for allowing anyone to launch their newsletter with an intuitive, ready for liftoff payment feature built in. It does not get credit for the savior complex it wields over and over again in its Writer Stories spotlight. Especially when the motivation behind the spin seems to titillate, not educate or meaningfully empathize. (Again, I would point to the title they chose to crown Dunnings’ piece as proof of exactly this.)

I’m not trying to be contrarian here, or just a poopoo head. There’s actually a lot of creative solutions at the ready — both ones in our direct control and ones that could be championed by Substack itself:

• Prorated percentages taken by Substack based on subscriber following instead of a universal 10% policy. I.e. the larger your paid count, perhaps the larger the “platform charge.”

• Substack-branded columns centering articles co-written by writers with various-sized platforms.

• Grassroots ‘stacks from ardent, community-fevered folks that promote newsletters with <500 followers to get their engines really revving. This is entirely the purpose of efforts like

  SmallStack
  , intro’d to me by pixelated sunshine
  Robin Taylor (he/him)
  walkin’ the walk while talkin’ the talk.

  

• Apprenticeships and mentorships sponsored by big names nurturing and supporting smaller promising talent, for free.

• Support for the ever-popular substacker interview format that features only indie writers. Shoutout

  Tiffany Chu
  here:

  

• Honesty around the damn algorithms. If people want to play the game well, let them know the rules. An interesting place to start? Check out how Substack itself categorizes your own newsletter, then see your nearest indexed neighbors using tools like this Substack map.

• Tweak the damn algorithms. Ya that’s probably asking too much, but it’s not inappropriate to apply pressure on greater algorithmic Substack muscle dedicated to favoring those who consistently collaborate, like and share generously, post meaningful notes and restacks, and in general ongoingly conversate with other Substackers no matter their popularity or size.

• Hot take! Get rid of status-imbued checkmarks. We’re human and we award checkmarks so much reverence it’s a bit of a slippery psychological slope, though out of this list I’m least tied to this suggestion.

• Stay delusional. Stay complicated. Stay whimsical. I mean this. We know an overnight viral floodgate probably won’t open for us that changes our financial futures and allows us to fully, independently support ourselves as writers. We have to keep trying and trying anyway. I know I certainly will.

Everything feels very serious right now, which begs a scale rebalancing of striving — appropriately — to be very unserious. These discussions can bring levity and connection and validation while also toeing the line of a quite seriously nuanced modern issue. We care about this platform, we care what we can do on it, we care about its direction. Let’s talk about it.

Beyond that, who knows. I’m just a worm.

---

This piece ended up being so mf lengthy Substack’s draft editor kept pop-up prodding me with the memo it’s “too long for email” which, ya know, affects performance. The irony is not lost on me.

Thank you to everyone who like, restacked, and came forward with a thoughtful comment of their own on my original note. This is what we *should* be doing on here! If I haven’t been able to include you directly above, please feel free to yell at me below, or call me names, though at least do so with verve. Pretty please. The meaning of contributions were not lost on me, and I’m thankful. Also I need a head rub.