Among the handful of oft-discussed problems with Substack:
Their 90/10 subscription revenue split isn’t usurious, but it’s high compared to competing platforms — especially once you reach an even mid-tier level of popularity.
The only way this independent publishing game works, by any credible definition of “the long run”, is to build your own audience. Substack has indies convinced that they build an audience for you through some sort of secret-sauce network effects, but I’ve seen no evidence that’s true. Writers with established reputations and readerships joining Substack are helping build Substack’s brand, not their own.
The whole, you know, Nazi thing.
Less commented upon but just as bad is the branding trap. Substack is a damn good name. It looks good, it sounds good. It’s short and crisp and unique. But now they’ve gotten people to call publications on Substack not “blogs” or “newsletters” but “substacks”. Don’t call them that. And as I griped back in December, even the way almost all Substack publications look is deliberately, if subtly, Substack-branded, not per-publication or per-writer branded.
