In the process of reviewing my own subscriber base I noticed that you subscribed to my channel. Congratulations, you recently made the cut as far as active subscribers are concerned! What that means is that I ditched everyone who subscribed prior to Jan. 2024 that show no activity, which effectively cut my list in half. Those are what I call "impulse subscribers" - people who subscribe based on a comment I made on some other channel, but who never really looked to see what my channel is about. I'm fairly confident about that definition because I don't advertise anywhere, and the people who I dropped almost all have a characteristic signature, which is they're subscribed to far more channels than anyone could possibly read - in the hundreds for some of them.
I don't count that as a loss since they weren't paying attention anyway, and I'm not really interested in building my numbers. I regard obscurity as an advantage actually, in the sense that only the truly interested will seek me out and stick around. This relates to my own belief that 'change occurs at the margin.' I don't have to reach a wide audience in order to effect change, only influence a few key people who will themselves influence a few key people, and so on. A network effect, as opposed to a mass media approach. This is the 'hidden ground' of social media as McLuhan might call it. The linking up of individuals with similar goals and outlooks, some of whom may be in a position to effect positive change, as opposed to creating a fan club which people join simply for a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves, but not actually taking it any further than that.
There's a lot of historic precedence for the notion that 'change occurs at the margin.' The light bulb, for example, was not created by a committee looking for ways to get people to read more books. One person invented it, a few more saw the potential and put their money on the table, after which it took off like wildfire and literally changed the social dynamic in too many ways to list. The same rubric can be applied to historic developments such as fire, the wheel, stirrups, the crossbow, the compass, gunpowder... you get the idea.
Substack fits that definition as it was the brainchild of a couple of people, not something that came out of the design dept. of Microsoft or Apple. Does it have enough traction to achieve the kind of results you're hoping for? Well, maybe. Not every new idea is widely accepted at first. Often it hangs around for years before its applications and implications are fully understood. A good example is gunpowder which the Chinese invented, but never considered its application to artillery, other than small rockets designed to frighten horses. The stirrup of course was widely adopted as it was simple to implement and gave an obvious huge advantage in horse mounted combat.
The thing to realize about Substack is that it's small - less than 100 employees - and at present unprofitable, although being privately held the numbers are a bit hard to pin down. Do a Duck search on <substack financial position> for more insight.
My own channel is an example of what they're up against. I'm what you'd call a loss-leader. I'll never make any money for them because I don't charge anything. In addition, I take up a lot of their storage compared to people who only write, as my channel is audio and visual intensive. That said, they need us just to puff up their numbers in the same way my own subscription base was puffed up by compulsive subscribers. It's a bit of a shell game, which being in marketing I'm sure you understand.
Much like you, I'm studying the phenomenon as I believe Substack does have the potential to be a game changer, which is why they've already drawn negative attention from their rivals, the latest example being the hosting Nazis thing, which is absurd on its face. When you have to play the Nazi card you're reaching rock bottom and would probably be better off looking for Nazis in the Canadian parliament where they apparently have a lot of fans.
One suggestion I made to Substack mgmt. was to abandon their aversion to advertising and adopt a more intelligent approach. In short, allow authors to present advertising of their own choice, such as a travel themed channel carrying ads for cheap air tickets, but at the same time allow subscribers to opt out of receiving ads with no penalty. Many would opt out I'm sure, but not all. Personally I would be happy to host ads from music related companies since that's what my channel is about. Subscribers can then decide to opt in or out at any point. As a model railroader, I can assure you I'd opt IN at any channel about trains, and I'm sure the principle applies to almost all hobbies, which is a large part of the substack community. It's not all about politics.
As you'd expect, I've heard nothing from them on the idea, although it did get positive responses in the comments on one of their 'how can we improve the substack experience' posts. Not sure if they're too overworked to respond and are considering it, or are just too hostile to the idea of selective voluntary advertising, which is short-sighted IMO. As it stands, I have my doubts about their survival, given that they're attracting a lot of negative attention from the censors, and certainly must have noticed the recent arrest of the Telegram founder, which would have a chilling effect.
OK, that's enough words for now:) Interested to get your thoughts and perhaps establish a dialogue. Meanwhile I'll read your other posts and see if I can add anything constructive in the comments!
Hello!
In the process of reviewing my own subscriber base I noticed that you subscribed to my channel. Congratulations, you recently made the cut as far as active subscribers are concerned! What that means is that I ditched everyone who subscribed prior to Jan. 2024 that show no activity, which effectively cut my list in half. Those are what I call "impulse subscribers" - people who subscribe based on a comment I made on some other channel, but who never really looked to see what my channel is about. I'm fairly confident about that definition because I don't advertise anywhere, and the people who I dropped almost all have a characteristic signature, which is they're subscribed to far more channels than anyone could possibly read - in the hundreds for some of them.
I don't count that as a loss since they weren't paying attention anyway, and I'm not really interested in building my numbers. I regard obscurity as an advantage actually, in the sense that only the truly interested will seek me out and stick around. This relates to my own belief that 'change occurs at the margin.' I don't have to reach a wide audience in order to effect change, only influence a few key people who will themselves influence a few key people, and so on. A network effect, as opposed to a mass media approach. This is the 'hidden ground' of social media as McLuhan might call it. The linking up of individuals with similar goals and outlooks, some of whom may be in a position to effect positive change, as opposed to creating a fan club which people join simply for a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves, but not actually taking it any further than that.
There's a lot of historic precedence for the notion that 'change occurs at the margin.' The light bulb, for example, was not created by a committee looking for ways to get people to read more books. One person invented it, a few more saw the potential and put their money on the table, after which it took off like wildfire and literally changed the social dynamic in too many ways to list. The same rubric can be applied to historic developments such as fire, the wheel, stirrups, the crossbow, the compass, gunpowder... you get the idea.
Substack fits that definition as it was the brainchild of a couple of people, not something that came out of the design dept. of Microsoft or Apple. Does it have enough traction to achieve the kind of results you're hoping for? Well, maybe. Not every new idea is widely accepted at first. Often it hangs around for years before its applications and implications are fully understood. A good example is gunpowder which the Chinese invented, but never considered its application to artillery, other than small rockets designed to frighten horses. The stirrup of course was widely adopted as it was simple to implement and gave an obvious huge advantage in horse mounted combat.
The thing to realize about Substack is that it's small - less than 100 employees - and at present unprofitable, although being privately held the numbers are a bit hard to pin down. Do a Duck search on <substack financial position> for more insight.
My own channel is an example of what they're up against. I'm what you'd call a loss-leader. I'll never make any money for them because I don't charge anything. In addition, I take up a lot of their storage compared to people who only write, as my channel is audio and visual intensive. That said, they need us just to puff up their numbers in the same way my own subscription base was puffed up by compulsive subscribers. It's a bit of a shell game, which being in marketing I'm sure you understand.
Much like you, I'm studying the phenomenon as I believe Substack does have the potential to be a game changer, which is why they've already drawn negative attention from their rivals, the latest example being the hosting Nazis thing, which is absurd on its face. When you have to play the Nazi card you're reaching rock bottom and would probably be better off looking for Nazis in the Canadian parliament where they apparently have a lot of fans.
One suggestion I made to Substack mgmt. was to abandon their aversion to advertising and adopt a more intelligent approach. In short, allow authors to present advertising of their own choice, such as a travel themed channel carrying ads for cheap air tickets, but at the same time allow subscribers to opt out of receiving ads with no penalty. Many would opt out I'm sure, but not all. Personally I would be happy to host ads from music related companies since that's what my channel is about. Subscribers can then decide to opt in or out at any point. As a model railroader, I can assure you I'd opt IN at any channel about trains, and I'm sure the principle applies to almost all hobbies, which is a large part of the substack community. It's not all about politics.
As you'd expect, I've heard nothing from them on the idea, although it did get positive responses in the comments on one of their 'how can we improve the substack experience' posts. Not sure if they're too overworked to respond and are considering it, or are just too hostile to the idea of selective voluntary advertising, which is short-sighted IMO. As it stands, I have my doubts about their survival, given that they're attracting a lot of negative attention from the censors, and certainly must have noticed the recent arrest of the Telegram founder, which would have a chilling effect.
OK, that's enough words for now:) Interested to get your thoughts and perhaps establish a dialogue. Meanwhile I'll read your other posts and see if I can add anything constructive in the comments!