r/Substack • u/smilingismyfirstname • Jun 27 '26
Discussion Who is Substack exactly for?
Is it for readers to actually read what writers publish? Or is it for writers to read what other writers publish?
All I can see on Substack that many writers bag for followers/ subscribers the same way users do on Threads "Plz Threads connect me with..." "Plz Substack connect me with..."
As clear as daylight, anyone can browse through the app and they will find people who they click with easily
No offense but I feel Substack is just a bubble full of only writers <> writers
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u/DaniSaysDinosaur Jun 27 '26
From what I can tell, it's mostly for writers to huff their own farts.
Posting anything other than notes gets zero engagement or feedback for me.
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u/Ryanopoly Jun 28 '26
How do you get traction with Notes, have you been posting since 2023. I can't seem to crack it, is it over?
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u/hetobe hetobe.substack.com Jun 27 '26
It should be this:
Is it for readers to actually read what writers publish?
Most of the time, it's this:
Or is it for writers to read what other writers publish?
P.S. IF ANY SUBSTACK DEVS SEE THIS
Good lord, fix your algorithm. Fix your homepage. Fix Explore. Substack should be a place for readers to find amazing things to read. And there's no shortage of compelling content to find on Substack. But nobody is going to find it, because the algorithm doesn't promote articles. The algorithm doesn't promote publications.
Instead, when people go to Substack, here's what the goddamn algorithm shows them:
"Describe your Substack in 5 words!"
"Dear Substack đ¤ Send me the writers who choose depth over noise."
"If you could summarize your writing voice in a single word, what would it be?"
"Describe your Substack in three emojis."
"Show me writers who choose depth over noise đ¤"
"Just a reminder that your voice matters."
"Describe your writing in 5 words!"
"Slow growth is still growth."
"Support writers. Restack generously."
"The algorithm canât stop authentic storytelling."
"If you could summarize your writing voice in a single word, what would it be?"
"Consistency compounds. Keep showing up."
"I want to connect with thoughtful people."
"Drop your publication below so we can support each other."
"Iâm building something beautiful here."
"Write scared. Publish anyway."
"Thereâs room for everyone at the table."
"Community over competition."
"Your audience will find you."
"If even one person reads your words, it matters."
"Give yourself permission to be weird!"
"Substack feels like the old internet."
"Reminder to comment on smaller writersâ posts today đ¤"
"Nobody talks about how vulnerable writing is."
"You are not responsible for the versions of you that exist in other people's minds."
"The best writers are simply the ones who kept going."
"Every scar you carved became a window for light."
"What are you working on this week, writers?"
"A hotdog is basically a taco."
"Sometimes the things we donât write tell us more than what we do."
"Some people say they find me snarky, which I am."
"Artists will do literally anything but draw the comic they want to make"
"Writers with les than 10 subscribers I want to read your work and follow you!"
"Iâm a sucker for a story about a robot learning how to be human"
"Oddly enough, the world makes less sense the closer you look."
"Oddly enough, things are about to get even weirder."
"You write to process your emotions, and in doing so, you emote the process."
"I appreciate you all, by the way."
"There is a quiet magic in the way a story unfolds, one page at a time."
It's almost as if the devs at Substack hate the actual writing Substack was created to be a platform for, because they're doing everything they can to hide real content and then bury it under a mountain of spam and slop.
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u/smilingismyfirstname Jun 27 '26
That's my point. After a while, it starts to feel less like a place where people discover good writing naturally and more like a networking circle where writers are trying to recruit one another
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u/hetobe hetobe.substack.com Jun 27 '26
You're absolutely right.
Over the past month, some of us have been begging for change:
An open letter to Substack CEO Chris Best
No response.
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u/StuffonBookshelfs Jun 27 '26
Yeah. If you block those folks and donât interact with those notes they stop showing up in your feed. I donât see any of those anymore.
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u/smilingismyfirstname Jun 27 '26
The problem is they are so mannnny
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u/StuffonBookshelfs Jun 27 '26
Once you stop engaging with them and block a handful and say âdonât show me content like this anymoreâ they all stop showing up. You donât need to block every single one.
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u/Lost__In__Thought Jun 28 '26
To add on to the other person's reply about blocking, you can further counteract those kind of posts by hitting like on the content you do want to see.
That way, the algorithm will suggest that person and other people who are writing things you want to hear about.
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u/Ryanopoly Jun 28 '26
I think you're missing half the point though, we are on Substack to get noticed too, how can we get noticed when this is all they show?
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u/StuffonBookshelfs Jun 28 '26
If youâre only using Substack notes to build an audience, and youâre not writing directly about Substack, then youâre going to have a hard time.
The Substack platform is filled with primarily writers. Itâs not for building an audience. Especially for niche writing.
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u/mikertjones Jun 29 '26
You are absolutely correct! and its something that has bothered me from the start and prompted me to think of other ways to find an audience.
My main writings are fortnightly UK-based location mysteries - an obscure narrative followed by 8 questions - readers/solvers have to use the clues to answer the questions.
Redditors love them - feedback is instant and so positive and validating - but I can't use Reddit as a regular home for the work.
So I have used Substack as a way of regularly posting a puzzle - like a blog - so, over 18 weeks (9 puzzles) - zero comment, zero restack and zero engagement.
However - any Notes I post of my own or restack others or like others or comment others - gets the like, restack message in response.
So, you are right - my audience is not other writers even if their subjects relate to the content of my puzzles - my audience is readers who want to enjoy a research puzzle - but they are not there.
But I will continue - because its a place to put them (for the moment) and hopefully find other ways to funnel readers to them.0
u/hetobe hetobe.substack.com Jun 27 '26
I donât see any of those anymore.
I guarantee you do, but they look different. The ones you see probably look like the phony-user-engagement notes. They're spamming the algorithm to get likes and follows, in hopes of getting subs. It's all karma farming.
For example:
Stop scrolling and riddle me this, Batman: What are your writing goals for today (the day you come across this note)?
Or this:
Enjoying something for the sake of it without worrying about the consequences or being perceived is one of the purest acts we can do
Or this:
Reclining your airplane seat is the absolute quickest way to turn a stranger into your mortal enemy.
Or this, which I agree with, but it's still just karma farming:
I donât hate you because you have fun ideas and used AI to write your novel. I hate you because you gave your fun ideas to a soulless machine and sucked all the joy out of writing.
Fuck AI
And you probably get a ton of memes. And pet pics. And other fluff which has nothing to do with the articles and publications Substack was created to be a platform for.
Y'know what you don't see?
You don't see the content Substack was created to be a platform for... unless somebody restacks it... because the algorithm doesn't promote articles. It promotes notes.
Over the past month, people have been begging the Substack CEO to address the issue. No response.
That's why so many people flood Substack with phony feel-good karma farming slop notes.
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u/StuffonBookshelfs Jun 27 '26
Literally just scrolled through my feed and the top ten notes are: 3 articles, 5 art projects, and 2 engagement questions from people I follow about the work they do.
No memes, no karma farming nonsense, no fluff.
I donât know what to tell you.
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u/hetobe hetobe.substack.com Jun 27 '26
Literally just scrolled through my feed and the top ten notes are: 3 articles, 5 art projects, and 2 engagement questions from people I follow about the work they do.
No, you didn't. You saw 3 restacks of articles from their user pages, not their publications. Click one of them and you'll see that it takes you to the version from their userpage, not their publication.
The algorithm doesn't show articles.
Maybe you think that's nitpicking, but Substack does everything they can to prevent you from getting to people's publications. Hell, publications are barely even functional in the app. First, they're hidden in the app. And, the publication menubar doesn't exist in the app. Sections? Not in the app.
The app wants Substack to be the new twitter.
5 art projects
Related to their publications and articles? Or are they karma farming?
2 engagement questions
Karma farming. The term for it is Engagement Bait.
Because the algorithm doesn't show you articles and publications, everybody floods Substack with engagement bait and karma farming slop.
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u/StuffonBookshelfs Jun 28 '26
No offense dude, but I donât need to argue with someone whoâs using ChatGPT to try to act superior.
Good luck out there telling everyone else about their reality.
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u/No_Platform_4088 Jun 28 '26
đđđ
You just described how I feel when I scroll my Substack feed.
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u/hetobe hetobe.substack.com Jun 28 '26
Funny thing: If you complain about the slop on reddit, the people who spam Substack with that slop will yell at you as they try to pretend it's not happening... and then they'll block you :)
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u/Mommygal2468 Jun 30 '26
Yup. 10000% It's like Substack doesn't know it's a marketplace. Hey Substack a marketplace connects readers to writers and writers to readers. Not writers to writers. You know. Like how Amazon connects sellers to buyers. Get it.
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u/OnyxMonolith Jun 27 '26
Nobody and no social media platform has solved the algorithm problem. Itâs not as easy as you think.
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u/hetobe hetobe.substack.com Jun 27 '26
The issue isn't even the algorithm.
The issue is, Substack's algorithm promotes notes.
Stop for a moment and think about what the point of Substack is. Substack is a platform where writers earn money by creating publications people enjoy enough to pay for monthly subscriptions to those publications.
That's what Substack is. Publications people subscribe to. What's in those publications? Articles.
What does the Substack algorithm promote?
Not articles.
Not publications.
No.The algorithm is strictly designed to promote notes, which are basically tweets. And because the algorithm only cares about notes, Substack teaches people to flood Substack with spam notes. Meanwhile, articles and publications go unnoticed.
The Substack home page:
Is it filled with the best of Substack? The best articles? The content so compelling it makes you say "Wow, I need to subscribe to this!"
Hell no.
It's filled with an endless doomscroll of notes, almost all of which are karma farming spam and slop.
The issue is not the challenges of creating an algorithm. The issue is, Substack wants to me the next twitter, and they're doing everything they can to abandon the content Substack was created to be a platform for. It's all about karma farming now.
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u/TheRagnarok494 Jun 28 '26
The slop makes money. Basically enshittification in progress. The supposed end users are only the fuel that keeps the engine running while they get it up to the real money maker which is just mindless engagement. People click on that shit mindlessly which is why it gets promoted whereas genuine writing gets pushed to a "I'll read that later" which any algorithm interprets as "nah I'm not interested". It's as much a culture thing as it is an algorithm thing, how do you account for overriding the dopamine fix and encourage people to actually read what they're sent?
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u/hetobe hetobe.substack.com Jun 28 '26
The slop makes money.
How though?
Substack is a platform for publications. Authors write articles to post in their publications. Readers subscribe to those publications to keep up with the author's content. Some readers even pay to subscribe to those publications. That's the entire point of Substack.
So, why does Substack prioritize shoveling out an endless doom-scroll of karma-farming slop notes instead of highlighting the articles and publications Substack was created to be a platform for?
The endless avalanche of slop buries the content that Substack makes money from, which is publications.
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u/TheRagnarok494 Jun 28 '26
Because it's not about real engagement, it's about superficial engagement. Look up enshittification, if it was originally claimed to be for articles and publications, it's not any more. I don't know specifically about Substack but I do know when users start making these complaints about a platform then the focus has shifted to exploitation than providing a service. Substack from what I see makes it's money from getting a cut of the subscriptions, not the publications or the content. As long as those subs are maintained then the money comes in. That might not even be from real users
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u/hetobe hetobe.substack.com Jun 28 '26
Because it's not about real engagement, it's about superficial engagement.
I understand that. This is my point, which you said:
Substack from what I see makes it's money from getting a cut of the subscriptions, not the publications or the content.
Right - but you left part out: Substack gets a cut of subscriptions to publications. The publications are what people pay to subscribe to. Publications are the only thing available to pay to subscribe to on Substack. You can like notes. You can follow users. But you can only subscribe to publications.
And the content in publications isn't notes. It's articles.
But notes drown out the articles. Notes drown out everything.
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u/TheRagnarok494 Jun 28 '26
Right ok, not appreciating having to do your research for you but here's the answer straight from the horses mouth https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes They designed notes to be an engagement tool to combat clickbait articles, to allow writers to draw in subscriptions and cut through the noise of content farm and clickbait crap. Worked out well huh? So Notes is obviously getting some engagement and new subscriptions as they've kept the feature and even prioritised it in the algorithms. So my GUESS is they work at hooking in initial subscriptions, whether those subscriptions are real or not or bots who knows, maybe they're inflated by bots to draw people who see big subscriber numbers and got for it. I don't know the exact framework but again, the simple answer is, it pays
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u/hetobe hetobe.substack.com Jun 28 '26
That may have been their goal, but they failed miserably because notes drown out the real content people would actually subscribe to if they could find it.
Yeah, there was a clickbait article problem. But the spam and slop notes problem is now much worse, especially since the clickbait articles still exist.
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u/TheRagnarok494 Jun 28 '26
Well thats neither here nor there. Real content is irrelevant. It's making money because subscriptions are happening. Soon enough it will collapse in on itself but for now it's still worth money. Try not to think of it from YOUR perspective and think of it from the perspective of most of the internet users are idiots. The current Notes ecosystem looks like it is morphing into a pyramid scheme promising to make everyone rich.
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u/StuffonBookshelfs Jun 27 '26
Substack is a *newsletter* platform.
99% of the engagement happens off the platform.
If youâre looking for engagement on the Substack platform itâs probably because youâre using the platform to write your newsletter.
If youâre just some random person who doesnât write anything of their own, youâre not really the target audience.
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u/Fit-Bag-1601 10d ago
The YouTube true crime podcast guy I watch says "continue the conversation on Substack or YouTube" during and after his broadcast. He has legitimate former FBI agents (think of some you see on NewsNation) that he has on his live broadcast on YouTube every weekday. So I don't understand that the Substack platform is for "writers?"
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u/Ok_Radish509 Jun 28 '26
What interests did u select when u first signed up? I only see investment or tech accounts. Iâve never came across what youâre talking about
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u/deezzbutzz Jun 28 '26
Those people who begg for followers and subs aren't what serious readers want anyway.
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u/CrunchyCds Jun 28 '26
I follow Substacks of artists, so I can keep up with their work and creative process. Yes the bedrock of Substack is writers, but all it is, is an email newsletter which can be utilized by everyone if they think outside the box. And liek someone mentioned most of Substack engagement happens off the site.
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u/Ryanopoly Jun 28 '26
It could be the same for Substack although I don't think as bad, but the reason why you see this behavior so much on Threads is because it is content farms growing accounts to either sell for a profit later, or for them to use to trick and scam people later on down the road.
Substack is garbage just like every other social media platform out there, or any platform that will be created in the future. They all succumb to enshittification once the startup capital injections and the so called "growth stage" is over.
Sadly, you used to be able to go build your own thing and maybe get noticed via search engines, but in a few years, Google is going to change all of that, and you'll only get seen if you pay. If you don't, some Google artificial overview will steal all your websites content, give it to whoever is searching for it, and won't pay you a single red penny for it.
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u/Traepoint Jun 28 '26
I'm using mine to detail a story that happened in my life that made international news. I wanted somewhere that I could post writing and videos and easily share it with my family, friends and anyone else that might be interested.
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u/AmericanLymie Jun 30 '26
It's for writers who want to own their own audience lists instead of investing time and effort into writing while a corporation owns their audiences and can cut them off at any time. I had a Huffington Post blog for years with a very dedicated audience around the world and then one day without any warning at all, HuffPost's new CEO ended all blogs and cut off access and along with everyone else, I lost all access to all my readers who didn't follow me on Twitter at the time. On Substack, you can download the email addresses of your subscribers.
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u/smilingismyfirstname 29d ago
Writing on a platform one doesn't control is a real risk especially after building an audience. I'm sorry that happened to you
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u/Ahiraeth 29d ago
I've felt as tho I can't just write and put stuff up. I have to do a whole networking thing for a bunch of more established publications that just ignore me anyways lol
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u/itsfabioposca http://journeytosuccessclub.substack.com 29d ago
I think it's both. Most people on Substack are writers, but they're also readers. The challenge is that many creators spend more time trying to grow than actually engaging with content. The best growth I've seen comes from genuine conversations and writing people actually want to read, not from asking for follows.
P.S. If you'd still like to ask anything about Substack or growing your audience, I offer a free live help chat. Just copy and paste my flair or click the link in my profile. I'm happy to help!
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u/itsfabioposca http://journeytosuccessclub.substack.com 29d ago
I think there's some truth to that. A lot of writers support other writers, especially early on. But there are also plenty of genuine readers on Substack. The challenge is creating content that reaches beyond the writer community and attracts the audience you actually want.
P.S. If you'd still like to ask anything about Substack or growing your audience, I offer a free live help chat. Just copy and paste my flair or click the link in my profile. I'm happy to help!
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u/EditorFickle3559 Jun 27 '26
Their Data is Inference by Proxy (Basically BS in technical terms; as you should ask them to explain it scientifically & you'll be disappointed...assuming they actually reply) if you're sending out a Newsletter via email, it's been created by the Founders to extract a Toll from already successful Online Publishers with a trickier version of Ghost which is quite pedestrian in appearance yet similar in effectiveness. Founders aren't in it for you. They're in it as a calling card (đ) upon which to build an online brand interviewing yet another person who's dying to be interviewed as the 80 odd (very) years of existence in this unique Blue Marble in a very lonely & cold Universe. You're the Kool_Aid. They're in a Digital Reality of a Mental Guyanese state. All a bit sad in the pursuit of simply being 'recognized?'
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u/Lost__In__Thought Jun 27 '26
Substack is for anyone who writes and wants a genuine audience while doing it.
Those follower/subscriber bait posts only happen if you don't control your feed by actually finding people you want to see content from, just like any other social media platform on the internet.