Substack’s Dying

Why everyone (no one) is jumping ship

If I had a dollar for every time I’d heard “Substack’s days are numbered” this month, I’d be rich.

Nah. But I’d have enough to buy a nice bottle of Cab Sav.

Is it true? Is Substack on the decline? And who (exactly) is saying the heyday is over and we should all be ready for hard times?

Recently, some famous dude with hundreds of thousands of followers* declared that because Substack had got a new pile of investment funding, it was going to introduce advertising and this would mark the beginning of its slow death.

Dude had no inside track to this strategy; it was pure speculation.

Suddenly, my feed was full of Substack death stories. At first I was alarmed, then, after researching the facts, I was underwhelmed. Now when I see one I just facepalm.

So I thought I’d explain how Substack is changing and why everyone’s having a hissy fit about it.

Here are the real facts

1. Substack’s business model probably needs tweaking

The business model is problematic, but I’m not talking about the fact that Substack doesn’t run ads, I’m talking about the fact it provides free hosting.

Here’s what I mean….

I have two publications:

• one that makes >$25K per year and
• one that is free to read.