Oddbean new post about login | logout Substack’s getting more traction and moving beyond text and newsletters. https://www.semafor.com/article/10/06/2024/substack-wants-to-do-more-than-just-newsletters What’s most interesting is why people are moving to or sticking with substack. It’s traffic generation. They’re taking a 10% cut of revenue but they are able to use the platform and network to drive 50% of new subscribers and 30% of new paid subscribers to each substack creator. Sure, creators also need to build traffic, but the power is in the network which grows an audience. If we are going to see Nostr as a protocol for creators who run a business, we need to make it easier for them to build an audience. That can be algorithims, but it could also be making it easier to recommend good content, share lists, etc… The other issue we face with creators is that subscriptions are much more valuable to a creator than one off payments. With NWC and wallets we CAN do subscriptions, but we haven’t made it easy and nostr connected the way zaps are.
For writers with no audience, Substack may work. But several folks left after the Nazi business and did an analysis of their new platform vs the old platform and they found that Substack’s discoverability features didn’t generate enough paying subscribers to make the 10% fee worth it. I think both Garbage Day and Platformer had this experience. My point being I’m not sure they have figured out the model or the UI to counter the pattern of everything on the internet is free.
Great input! I was wondering where exactly Substack gets those extra subscribers - all it can do is build a great app (which creators could do for themselves) and then just toss around those same readers that creators themselves already attracted. Unless they do paid marketing, which I bet creators could do better if they wanted to.
I talked to a journalist yesterday who said they were going to Substack bc it was easy. When I mentioned Ghost they said it required too much technical knowledge to figure out. I haven’t played with Ghost so I’m not sure. They also perceive that Substack will help them gain an audience. It will help with unpaid subscribers but I’m not sure it will help with paid. Based on the other’s experience the paid usually come through shares from other subscribers or the writer’s own social media efforts elsewhere
I totally agree on building more tools, and improving the UI/UX to help creators grow an audience. However, I'm not sure that the subscription business model is winning. There are more and more signs that users are not willing to pile up subscriptions (streaming services, podcasts, newsletters, ...). As long as content is not behind a paywall, I welcome all kinds of payments (one-time zap, metered, subscriptions, ...). After all, Nostr is supposed to be the layer that could power value4value dynamics.