Here’s great piece on why substack could go the way of medium by @adam_keesling

3 points in thread https://napkinmath.substack.com/p/substack-rhymes-with-medium

1/3
There’s a long road to venture scale based on 10% commission. 250k paid subs sound great but it will barely keep the lights on and will be hard to justify the $15m raised just last year. Growth is strong 2.5X in past three months though, so promising.

2/3
Retention will be Substack’s pressure point. 10% commission when you’re starting out is good. But its a big problem for writers with a large following and who want to scale. Nothing stopping creators from switching to Ghost and cutting out the middle man.

3/3
Substack COULD solve on this by creating a kind of longer form version of twitter with subscriptions. This would be to essentially disrupt FB groups and bring content, creators, algorithmic recommendations and community into one platform. It’s a long shot though.

One of reasons I don’t publish The Martech Weekly in Substack is that I can’t OWN my subscribers experience. When it comes to branding, analytics and creating the journey I want subscribers to go on, Substack is limited. Sure you can get started today, but what about tomorrow?

If you liked this thread check out TMW, I write every week, publish on Ghost and you can get it in slack too. https://www.themartechweekly.com