Substack: the future of news – or a media pyramid scheme?
Since launching in 2017, Substack has been touting itself as a “better future for news”. Their offering was simple: email newsletters with an option for subscribers to pay monthly fees for content – like Netflix for newsletters.
If you have something to write and a list of emails of people who want to read it, the thinking goes, there is nothing stopping you from making a living on your own. With a healthy Substack email list, freelancers are no longer beholden to flakey editors; staff reporters no longer have to be insecure about layoffs; small media companies no longer anxious about a tweak to an algorithm that would send them into oblivion.
All that the company asks for in return? A 10% cut of subscription dollars. Substack’s vision is proving enticing. In the past 12 months, several highprofile journalists and writers have left jobs to go it alone with Substack: the New York Times’ Charlie Warzel, Vox’s Matthew Yglesias, New York Magazine’s Heather Havrilesky.
The number of poets, essayists, hobbyists, cooks, advice-givers, spiritual guides who charge a modest amount for their newsletters is growing. In a year when US media lost thousands of newsroom jobs, the company emerged as a seemingly viable alternative for journalists and writers to earn money. But then, over the past months, several revelations about Substack’s policies have led many to question whether it ought to be entrusted with crafting a vision for the future of news.
The controversy began in response to reports that the company was luring writers to the platform through a program called Substack Pro, which offered lump sums of money – as much as $250,000 – for writers to leave their jobs and take up newsletter writing. Some writers were also offered access to editors, health insurance and a legal defender program.
On the face of it, Substack Pro was simply offering writers the benefits that usually come with full-time employment. But the program was seen as controversial for a number of reasons.
To begin, the cohort of writers selected by the company remained undisclosed. This created an invisible tiered system dividing those who were actively supported, and those who were taking a risk in trying to build their own subscriber base.
According to journalist Annalee Newitz, this made Substack into something of a pyramid scheme. Some anonymous writers were destined to succeed while the vast majority were providing Substack with free content, hoping to one day be able to monetize. As the New York Times columnist Ben Smith put it, Substack was surreptitiously making some writers rich and turning others into “the content-creation equivalent of Uber drivers”.
The second and perhaps more fundamental problem with Substack Pro was that it contravened the company’s claims to editorial neutrality. Since launching, Substack has insisted that it is not a media company but a software company that builds tools to help writers publish newsletters, the content of which was none of their business –like a printing press for the digital age. This differentiated the company from social media platforms, which organize content algorithmically to increase engagement, and media companies, which make active editorial decisions about what they publish.
In reality, though, Substack was doing both. They were using metrics from Twitter to identify writers with a proven ability to draw attention to themselves, and then actively poaching them. Substack’s founders, a journalist and two developers, said they wanted to provide an alternative to the instability of digital media companies and the toxicity of social media platforms. And yet, the company was actively choosing writers who had come to prominence through those channels.
Substack was, in other words, skimming the fat off the top of what they called a toxic media environment all while claiming to offer an alternative, and tried to avoid accountability for their selections by maintaining a veneer of neutrality, claiming to merely be a platform not a publisher. They were trying to have their media cake and eat it, too.
The revelations about Substack Pro led to a broader conversation about the company’s content moderation poli
cies. At the very end of last year the company clarified their position: no porn. No spam. No doxxing or harassment. No attacks on people based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, medical condition. But the company also took the opportunity to assert their commitment to free speech. “We believe dissent and debate is important,” co-founder Hamish McKenzie wrote. “We celebrate nonconformity.”
Some saw this a welcoming invitation in what they perceive as an increasingly “woke” media landscape. Dana Loesch, the former NRA spokesperson, moved her newsletter from Mailchimp to Substack, claiming that the former “deplatforms conservatives”. Writer Andrew Sullivan, who has been criticized for his views on race and IQ, moved his column from New York Magazine over to the newsletter format.
For others, though, Substack’s position on content moderation was alienating, demonstrating that the company had little interest in actively addressing some of the thorny questions about how to host healthy media communities online. Many have decided to leave and take their newsletters, and their email lists, elsewhere.
Of course, Substack Pro represents only a very small proportion of people using the platform to write. Most write brief letters for micro-communities from whom they ask for no payment. There is an intimacy in the newsletter format that is not available on social media. I love receiving the poet and essayist Anne Boyer’s meditations in my inbox every now and then. Likewise the occasional musings and book recommendations from writer and critic Joanne McNeil.
Substack does have an interest in helping these smaller-scale writers level up to taking payment from subscribers, though. Every dollar earned by a writer on the platform contributes to their revenue. For this reason, they have offered no-strings-attached grants, between $500 and $5,000 in cash, to help writers take more time to commit to building an audience.
The concept of creators earning money directly from a cohort of followers is certainly not new; Patreon, OnlyFans, Cameo, Clubhouse all work from a similar paradigm. Digital media might be moving away from a model where creators toil for free, trying to accumulate as many followers as possible and somehow earning a living through ad-revenue or product placement. We seem, rather, to be approaching what Kevin Kelly calls the 1,000 true fans principle: if you find 1,000 people who will pay you for what you create, you can make a living as an independent creator.
But the company wants to do more: they want to be the future of news. In this quest, the company has become the nexus for bigger questions that will define the future of digital media. What is the line between a journalist and an influencer? Are readers consumers or fans? How do we create a shared sense of reality in a media landscape comprised mostly of individual writers and their loyal followers?
Despite the controversy, Substack will be part of this conversation.
A previous version of this piece erroneously said Jesse Singal and Glenn Greenwald had been signed by Substack Pro. This has now been corrected.
Substack was skimming off what they called a toxic media environment while claiming to offer an alternative