"the nature of media to break apart and then come together again ...a new period of bundling" points to a deeper issue in online media: separating publishing INTO the cloud from feeds/recommenders OUT FROM the cloud. Ultimately we should end these siloed bundles and enable an open market in filtering/recommender/aggregation services that serve users whatever they might want.
The "pause email notifications" on by default is a setting that as a writer I'm not too happy to see.
The strategy is clear for Substack, and the app was, indeed, inevitable. Also, Google's silent hold on the inbox is yet another risk to Substack - and email newsletters.
It seems we're heading to a world of multiple platforms for writers and creators which each charge a rent - Substack, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and others.
Pleased to see the new App and plan to use it on my Ipad. That said, I've been using Substack Reader on my desk machine for over a year, and it provides many of the same advantages. At one time, I was subscribed to 14 news letters, paying for 4, which was my limit. I found I just could not keep up so bailed on the 10 freebies. One of Platformer's big selling points to me was a definite publishing schedule, including holidays. Hardly any other publications provided that.
Sorry for the late comment, my brain works in weird way. Can you explain to us what made you chose to stay in Platformer (or any other self-serve newsletter-based CMS like Revue) versus going all in on owning every part of your professional stack, something like Ghost (like you have explained here) or Wordpress (going Stratechery)? Would you write pros and cons of that?
Substack was fast and easy at a time when I was optimizing for both of those things. Since then, I've been happy to let the Substack team try ways to grow newsletters like mine faster. I'm not totally convinced that anything they're doing is having a huge effect, but generally Platformer has grown quickly enough that I feel no pressing need to go build my own stack. (Also, like I said in the post: never discount the power of inertia.)
I’ve been using the Substack app on my iPad and the experience is pretty good. It’s nice to have all the writers I subscribe to in one place. It’s definitely increased my reading of them. And desire to subscribe to more.
Still they’ve also made some strange decisions about the app. For example you apparently can’t use both the iphone and iPad apps at the same time. You have to log out of one to use the other — according to support. And having to activate the app with an email rather than just logging in with user name and password is also annoying. Particularly when the email activation never shows up.
"the nature of media to break apart and then come together again ...a new period of bundling" points to a deeper issue in online media: separating publishing INTO the cloud from feeds/recommenders OUT FROM the cloud. Ultimately we should end these siloed bundles and enable an open market in filtering/recommender/aggregation services that serve users whatever they might want.
The "pause email notifications" on by default is a setting that as a writer I'm not too happy to see.
The strategy is clear for Substack, and the app was, indeed, inevitable. Also, Google's silent hold on the inbox is yet another risk to Substack - and email newsletters.
It seems we're heading to a world of multiple platforms for writers and creators which each charge a rent - Substack, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and others.
I currently subscribe to 2 Substack newsletters, and only one of them updates, so technically Substack made me a Platformer app, which I’m okay with.
This is a fun way of looking at it :)
Great insights on the reasons of substack’s decision + where could it go from here.
Pleased to see the new App and plan to use it on my Ipad. That said, I've been using Substack Reader on my desk machine for over a year, and it provides many of the same advantages. At one time, I was subscribed to 14 news letters, paying for 4, which was my limit. I found I just could not keep up so bailed on the 10 freebies. One of Platformer's big selling points to me was a definite publishing schedule, including holidays. Hardly any other publications provided that.
Sorry for the late comment, my brain works in weird way. Can you explain to us what made you chose to stay in Platformer (or any other self-serve newsletter-based CMS like Revue) versus going all in on owning every part of your professional stack, something like Ghost (like you have explained here) or Wordpress (going Stratechery)? Would you write pros and cons of that?
Substack was fast and easy at a time when I was optimizing for both of those things. Since then, I've been happy to let the Substack team try ways to grow newsletters like mine faster. I'm not totally convinced that anything they're doing is having a huge effect, but generally Platformer has grown quickly enough that I feel no pressing need to go build my own stack. (Also, like I said in the post: never discount the power of inertia.)
I’ve been using the Substack app on my iPad and the experience is pretty good. It’s nice to have all the writers I subscribe to in one place. It’s definitely increased my reading of them. And desire to subscribe to more.
Still they’ve also made some strange decisions about the app. For example you apparently can’t use both the iphone and iPad apps at the same time. You have to log out of one to use the other — according to support. And having to activate the app with an email rather than just logging in with user name and password is also annoying. Particularly when the email activation never shows up.