Thread by @joshtpm

I did a deep dive into this ‘substack controversy’ and the whole thing seems like nonsense to me. The claim seems to be that the people running substack are choosing some kinds of writers and not others to not only pay but give the exposure substack makes possible.

2/ This is pretty clearly nonsense. Theyre not bringing audiences to anyone. They’re paying some people to bring their audiences to them. Or considered from another angle, it’s the equivalent of giving a big advance to someone you’re very confident will produce a book that sells.

3/ Lots of platforms try to purchase buy-in to their platforms in the early days of their operation. Platforms require a critical mass of buy-in to start getting the kinds of economies of scale and a loose sort of path dependence to make everything work.

4/ These are obviously financial bets, not a crypto-editorial policy. This is one of those controversies where the language of “transparency” has been coopted to give a sheen of legitimacy to an argument that is based on some mix of ignorance abt publishing economics and ...

5/ just ambient grumbliness. A few months ago I worked a bit with a friend who was launching a newsletter on substack. Just generally advice on roll out, marketing, no financial connection of any kind. But in the course of those conversations he told me that a woman with a ...

6/ newsletter about a different topic had one of these deals. She seemed like someone who could bring an audience (albeit at a much smaller scale than some of the big names today) and they gave her one of these deals. Her project seemed to be going well. He knew this ...

7/ because I think the folks at substack told him. Or maybe it was just common knowledge. It didn’t strike either of us as in any way odd. A logical bet for the company. It’s not odd. It’s not a problem. Fwiw, I would bind my enterprise to any platform. Look at all ...

8/ the fun they’re having at Medium. But that’s just me. Substack seems to work great for a lot of folks. Not everyone is so fanatical about insulating themselves so much from the whims of someone else’s VC/tech backed business. These are really challenging time for ...

9/ journalists. I’ve seen the whole evolution over 20 years. But to survive it’s really important for journalists and writers in general to develop a basic literacy about the business of publishing. Otherwise it’s hard to make good decisions, even if all you want to do is write.