Email newsletters have been the darling of the digital media world over the past 5 years or so, but I’m increasingly concerned the industry has dramatically over-invested in the space.
Good piece. It was always interesting to me that news orgs responded to Substack by beefing up their own newsletter efforts, as if email newsletters were the secret thing that mattered. But when we started Substack, we weren’t really thinking about it as newsletters. We started off just calling them “subscription publications,” for which email and the web were equally important, and inseparable, layers. We later switched to saying “newsletters” simply because that was easier for people to instantly understand. We figured that once they started using Substack they’d see it was much more than just a newsletter.
Today, email remains an important component—or option—of a substack. But the things that really matter, which email serves as a proxy for, are the direct relationships between writer and reader, the writer’s ownership of those relationships, and the ability for readers to directly receive everything published by the writers they subscribe to. It used to be that email was the best way to serve those needs, but now the Substack app does, too (on web and on smartphones).
Hamish, you & your colleagues at Substack are part of the problem. Trying to monetize content writer by writer is even more annoying than mainstream media's online versions.
And you are not forgiven for monetizing Neo-Nazi writers.
Nice post Matt. I'm seeing folks come to me via the app, not email. I subscribe to two non-Substack publications via email (Money Stuff, Stratechery) and can barely keep up with those. So, to have the option to keep others inside the app helps.
Not really looking at open rates anymore. Can't tell if they are real or a signal of anything for that matter. I see views, likes, comments as more useful, and overall traffic, too.
I’m just starting out on substack because I wanted to get the word out about everything skiing. It’s intimidating to write and my skills definitely need improvement.
Facebook is so political and silly, it’s nice to have this substack forum to exchange ideas.
Good piece. It was always interesting to me that news orgs responded to Substack by beefing up their own newsletter efforts, as if email newsletters were the secret thing that mattered. But when we started Substack, we weren’t really thinking about it as newsletters. We started off just calling them “subscription publications,” for which email and the web were equally important, and inseparable, layers. We later switched to saying “newsletters” simply because that was easier for people to instantly understand. We figured that once they started using Substack they’d see it was much more than just a newsletter.
Today, email remains an important component—or option—of a substack. But the things that really matter, which email serves as a proxy for, are the direct relationships between writer and reader, the writer’s ownership of those relationships, and the ability for readers to directly receive everything published by the writers they subscribe to. It used to be that email was the best way to serve those needs, but now the Substack app does, too (on web and on smartphones).
Hamish, you & your colleagues at Substack are part of the problem. Trying to monetize content writer by writer is even more annoying than mainstream media's online versions.
And you are not forgiven for monetizing Neo-Nazi writers.
Nice post Matt. I'm seeing folks come to me via the app, not email. I subscribe to two non-Substack publications via email (Money Stuff, Stratechery) and can barely keep up with those. So, to have the option to keep others inside the app helps.
Not really looking at open rates anymore. Can't tell if they are real or a signal of anything for that matter. I see views, likes, comments as more useful, and overall traffic, too.
I’m just starting out on substack because I wanted to get the word out about everything skiing. It’s intimidating to write and my skills definitely need improvement.
Facebook is so political and silly, it’s nice to have this substack forum to exchange ideas.