On Substack, but not in love with Substack

Getting into that tech newsletter lifestyle

On Substack, but not in love with Substack

If you’re reading this, then you’re reading it on Substack. I sort of wish you weren’t – and I certainly wish I wasn’t writing it here. But we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds. This (first) post is, essentially, the tale of why I’m writing on Substack despite being a public critic of the company.

A couple of years ago, when money was still cheap (thanks to low interest rates) and tech funding was plentiful, it looked like there might be a whole ecosystem of Substack-type services.

One of the best prospects looked to be Revue – a newsletter startup that had been bought by Twitter. This seemed like it could be a very good marriage indeed. 

One of the fundamental challenges for Substack is revenue generation – it takes 10% of what its writers earn, with an additional 4% for payment processing. Substack recently raised $5m from the general public (at a $585m valuation), and one of the slides released alongside that fundraising suggests i…