Im Leaving Substack

And You Should Consider It Too

Well I would say it’s been a journey but quite frankly I haven’t done much on this website to warrant that. There are some great features on this site, the formatting is nice, and the email integration is quite kino, but there something inherently off with this site. I don’t claim to understand all the mechanics behind this issue, however I can simply observe one exists. From my limited observation it boils down to two things: Reach and Compensation.

When it comes to reach, Substack has some type of limiter, some hadicap that is hurting content creators, but regardless of the reason, I’ve noticed that content comes here to die. Its not fun to admit, especially since many of my mutuals use this site to post their content, however I’m calling it how I see it. I see mutuals spending one week to craft an amazing short story or provide high level insight on the latest geopolitical developments only to be quickly met with frusteration that nobody is reading.

And I think the reason is pretty simple. There are not that many users on substack. Normies dont come here to get their content. They scroll Tik Tok or Instagram for their content (which is often in video format I might add).

Its like trying to collect water from a leaky faucet vs a roaring river. Now I may be way off base with this statement, since Substack has 50 million unique vistors per month, with the top content creator “Heather Cox Richardson” making a reported $5 million per year. Sure thats great for heather, but the exception is just that. This is purely anecdotal but I see many mutuals, talented intelligent people struggling to not only monetize an audience, but even create a audience on this platform to begin with.

It seems to me that content creators should put their content else where. Places that have more eyeballs. YouTube has 2 billion unique users per month, Instagram 2 billion, and Tik Tok 750 million.

I ran a test a year ago. I posted a stupid poem parodying Edgar Allen Poe on Substack and on Youtube. Both channels are under developed so I felt the test was fair. One year later, the substack post had only 10 views. YouTube has nearly 60 views. 6 times as much reach for the exact same content. But whats worse is that substack post never grew. Once it got sent out in that first week, the views stopped. Nobody found it, nobody watched it. It may as well have been a snapchat, because it disapeared almost immeditely. Meanwhile the Youtube video slowly grew in reach with 5 views a month.

Why should anyone rely on the sole power of this platform to grow an audience? My mutuals and I often discuss how we are going to break into the cultural zietgiest, but rarely reevaluated the methods we are using. Data points are almost never considered. Trying to exert impact on the culture either through story telling or theory-celing is a monumental endeavor and we are not doing ourselves any favors by overrelying on substack to deliver those views.

BOTTOM LINE: If you want to build an audience on substack, you are going to have to bring them from somewhere else.

But that brings me to my second problem with substack, the compensation model. You see in this era of information, people have flooded the market with a supply of hot takes. Demand is being met many times over. Paywalls are often disregarded, because if I look hard enough I can often find some other person offering an adequate take that will satisfy my demand for knowldge. Few people in your audience will ever have think about paying 5 to 10 dollars a month for your takes, save for the few exceptional. So substack creators are forced to find other ways to monetize if you want to turn you passion into a living.

However with substack the most tried and true way to start making money on your content isnt even available. Yes I am talking about advertising. It really doesnt exist on this platform in a traditional sense. Often those early marketing dollars offer not just compensation, but validation to the writer/content creator that society does indeed value their input. But without that here on substack, content creators are forced to pump out free content and hope that people will pay for premium content. I’ve heard the lamentations of many anons.

But once again the problem of reach rears its ugly head. If this place had 2 billion people visiting the site, with an al-gore-rythm that helped new content creators build an audience, that strategy would be somewhat viable. But thats not the case. Often these power substack users already had a huge following from somewhere else and brought them over to this platform. If you are brand new to the game and want to try that, Good Luck, chances are you will be the 99% that fail to build that following.

Even worse if you do build an audeince, only 1% pay for subscriptions. How can you monitize the other 99%? The only way I know that can work on substack is to offer affiliate marketing via hyperlinks. That is a pain in the ass for most content creators. That means that content creators must learn how marketing works, how to select products that meet their audiences needs, all while not coming across like a disingenious hack. And even then, not everyone will buy. Not to mention the risk that if you promote the wrong product or piss off your audience, they could complain and you could lose your entire substack platform. (You dont truly own your content, substack does.)

So this got me thinking, what are my options? What can I do different? Well I realized I can build my own website and just put out my content there. I can offer advertising, courses, affiliate marketing, email newsletters, and do everything substack offers without the downsides. Sure it is a skillset and most anons here dont have the time nor patience to do this, but for me, I’ve seen enough to realize that if I want to maximize my reach, moving from substack to my own platform is the only logical move.

If you stay on substack let me offer you this advice. Build an audience elsewhere and bring redirect them here. Everyone is shopping at Wal Mart and you are over here trying to sell to a dozen people in an empty Kmart. Build your free content as a way to fish for an audience on other platforms, then if you want to leverage substacks premium feature then do that. That’s when substack will really shine. But if you are trying to do it all on here, well, Im sure you will get that boulder up there eventually Sisyphus.

As for me, I revamped my website and will be producing all my future cotent there. How will I do it. I dont know, but like in everything in my life, I will figure it out eventually. You can check it out at www.wjmegenney.com. For those of you who remain, I wish you all the best. Good Luck and God speed.

- Will