I’m going to take a moment out of my morning to complain about Substack, and then I’m almost certainly going to transfer this from my journal to my Substack.
Dan, I'm confused about your complaint that you can't find anything on Substack. And, I haven't noticed any technical problems failing to deliver content, but certainly have time to time on other sites. Seems like you are buying into conspiracy theories.
For example, I just entered, Alex Pretti, in the Substack search box, and quickly a seemingly endless scrolling list of posts appeared. So, I thought that maybe you wanted to search with more complex terms; maybe AI could help? So, I asked Perplexity.ai: "Can Perplexity search for articles on Substack?" Perplexity answered:
When you ask a question, Perplexity crawls the wider internet for relevant sources, including blogs, newsletters, and publishing platforms, then synthesizes those into an answer with citations you can open. Substack posts that are publicly viewable are treated like any other article or website in this process.
So, I asked, Search Substack for articles on Alex Pretti and summarize them. Perplexity reviewed 15 sources and summarized them:
"There are at least three substantive Substack pieces on Alex Pretti, plus related notes and commentary, that together frame his killing and its political fallout." Perplexity then gave ten paragraphs of summaries, and offered more follow-up queries.
So, maybe you should try an AI search when Substack search fails for you.
A couple of thoughts. I think of Substack in a cost/benefit way. The company sets a minimum cost and users then have to make a decision regarding whether the benefit necessary for a subscription is reached. I assume there are some “business” decisions that go into this approach but beyond a certain minimum I doubt that the real cost amounts to $60. I would prefer a lower fee - say $20 - and then content creators deciding what they thought their content was worth above this amount. As I have said multiple times before, I equate the present minimum fee with 4 Kindle or Apple Books and just don’t find enough value in Substack subscriptions at that rate. I also like the “all you can eat” model of Medium. Again, I can find useful content via a combination of search and following specific writers and this approach lets me pick and choose what I want to read. I would pay double the current subscription rate from Medium before I would consider investing more in Substack. I have thoughts about how subscription services price out certain categories of readers. I have focused much of what I have written online on k12 educators going back to my original interest in offering more current content to profs and their students who made use of my textbooks. I am not in the textbook game anymore, but I am still interested in that group and find very few making use of Substack or Medium. I would think the $50 subscription for Medium would be in their price range, but very few of them consume content from this source. How such decisions are made is a puzzle I would like to understand.
I agree that the $60 minimum is also a disincentive. Especially because it's not that easy to access people's archives, given the interface. Seems a bit expensive for what's basically a "magazine" of the most recent posts.
Dan, I'm confused about your complaint that you can't find anything on Substack. And, I haven't noticed any technical problems failing to deliver content, but certainly have time to time on other sites. Seems like you are buying into conspiracy theories.
For example, I just entered, Alex Pretti, in the Substack search box, and quickly a seemingly endless scrolling list of posts appeared. So, I thought that maybe you wanted to search with more complex terms; maybe AI could help? So, I asked Perplexity.ai: "Can Perplexity search for articles on Substack?" Perplexity answered:
"Yes. Perplexity can search and read articles that are published on Substack, as long as they are publicly accessible on the open web (not paywalled or behind login). [perplexity](https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/10352895-how-does-perplexity-work)
When you ask a question, Perplexity crawls the wider internet for relevant sources, including blogs, newsletters, and publishing platforms, then synthesizes those into an answer with citations you can open. Substack posts that are publicly viewable are treated like any other article or website in this process.
So, I asked, Search Substack for articles on Alex Pretti and summarize them. Perplexity reviewed 15 sources and summarized them:
"There are at least three substantive Substack pieces on Alex Pretti, plus related notes and commentary, that together frame his killing and its political fallout." Perplexity then gave ten paragraphs of summaries, and offered more follow-up queries.
So, maybe you should try an AI search when Substack search fails for you.
Pat
A couple of thoughts. I think of Substack in a cost/benefit way. The company sets a minimum cost and users then have to make a decision regarding whether the benefit necessary for a subscription is reached. I assume there are some “business” decisions that go into this approach but beyond a certain minimum I doubt that the real cost amounts to $60. I would prefer a lower fee - say $20 - and then content creators deciding what they thought their content was worth above this amount. As I have said multiple times before, I equate the present minimum fee with 4 Kindle or Apple Books and just don’t find enough value in Substack subscriptions at that rate. I also like the “all you can eat” model of Medium. Again, I can find useful content via a combination of search and following specific writers and this approach lets me pick and choose what I want to read. I would pay double the current subscription rate from Medium before I would consider investing more in Substack. I have thoughts about how subscription services price out certain categories of readers. I have focused much of what I have written online on k12 educators going back to my original interest in offering more current content to profs and their students who made use of my textbooks. I am not in the textbook game anymore, but I am still interested in that group and find very few making use of Substack or Medium. I would think the $50 subscription for Medium would be in their price range, but very few of them consume content from this source. How such decisions are made is a puzzle I would like to understand.
I agree that the $60 minimum is also a disincentive. Especially because it's not that easy to access people's archives, given the interface. Seems a bit expensive for what's basically a "magazine" of the most recent posts.
You can't put all your eggs in one basket, so I'm live across the web and will stay that way.