I’m not so sure. Some of us want to write notes but not be subscribed to 1000 Substack newsletters. Plus it needs to be able to split stuff into lists. That was a handy feature on Twitter.
Yes, you can turn off emails for a subscription, but still see the posts, notes, and chat. But I agree. They need to make it easier to follow just Notes to really replace Twitter more easily for most people.
With seemingly every new feature or "upgrade" Substack moves beyond its core competency. Notes is a social step too far and will go the way of Clubhouse.
98% of the people that use Twitter have never heard of substack. I see no reason to leave Twitter. I don't care who owns it or who runs it. Everything else that tries to come along is an also ran and a waste of time signing up.
Is that true though? If your main goal is conversion to paid subscribers, it’s likely much easier to convert someone from Notes than from Twitter. There’s far less steps involved
Love this article! And I totally agree. If anyone is looking to understand more about Notes and how it differs from Twitter, check out my Notes on the topic!
Interesting...is it just in your home feed or is it also in your subscribed feed? I honestly don't want my content showing up anywhere it's not wanted. Maybe trying unsubscribing or muting me?
1. I think notes is definitely very interesting. It has the potential to turn full on social networking and thus now fully in line to compete with Twitter as formally acknowledged by Twitter owner by his ego-centric stupidities.
2. However, jumping to the point that it is here to be Twitter killer is a bit too early? Yes, it is formal competition now. But this also now puts the Substack team through a real test and more so their product management.
3. Why product management? Because notes is nice, but as visible it is clearly not sophisticated yet. It's meshing with other features is already a bit confusing. The product would need to start working much more rapidly to live up to expectations rising faster than users and revenues and much more than capacity to develop and deliver. Twitter on the other hand has no one rooting for them (except the fans of bravado and the investors of the 44B throw away), so just any random one good step could help them.
4. The sheer scale of Twitter users is a long way for Substack to match (I am rooting for them to get there). But that's the constraint of network effects. Once some is there, it's very difficult to undo it (definitely doable).
5. I find Ben Thompson's argument that Twitter never figured it's PMF very convincing. I am curious to learn what is Substack's PMF.
6. On the other hand, I am curious to know your more details views on why you don't see much room for micro payments?
- I think as you mention the reasons writers are loving to be on Substack is because their core problem of monetization directly is solved better by Substack over Twitter/Facebook, who made money using content of others. So that is solving for writers/content creators.
- On the other hand the consumer side problem is - A. 95% users (certainly +90%) in the world don't have the willingness to pay for subscriptions. B. Even if I wish to, It's just difficult to live and manage with so many subscriptions. I love a lot of writers and authors. But cannot subscribe to everyone.
- For #A above, Ads have worked forever and I think will continue to work. Ofcourse It needs better revenue sharing models. For B. Micro payments solves the problem for users. Or at least, to begin with - Substack may have to do aggregated payments.
If you have written more about the case of micro payments before, would love to learn. Thanks.
“The real incentive that keeps creators glued to any particular platform is its ability to help them make money.”
Bingo. We don't want to make people like Zuckerberg billionaires by monetizing our work. That shouldn't be too hard to understand. Notes may or may not help this, but the truth is that Substack doesn't make money unless we make (more) money, so they're trying different things to help. It's 100x more than FB has ever done for us, and Substack is still relatively new.
I think you overestimate how hard Mastodon is to use and underestimate its continued growth.
There's nice iOS, Mac, and Android clients (Ivory, Mona, Fedilab, in order, for just three), which take out the pain of following people on the web version and they feel very intuitive. There's still no native post quoting, but that'll happen soon and there are already workarounds in many of the apps.
Mastodon still has growing pains but there's lots of momentum, and far less drama. And depending on the instance you join, you are far less likely to ever come across the covid hucksters, the alt-right, the tankies, and the truly awful people like Grammm LineAHand that Substack thrives on.
I’m not so sure. Some of us want to write notes but not be subscribed to 1000 Substack newsletters. Plus it needs to be able to split stuff into lists. That was a handy feature on Twitter.
I agree.
Is there a way to subscribe to Notes without their newsletter? I can't tell who I'm following and who I'm not. Kinda confused on that front.
I do see the Chat feature being migrated into some type of DM-messaging functionality
Yes, you can turn off emails for a subscription, but still see the posts, notes, and chat. But I agree. They need to make it easier to follow just Notes to really replace Twitter more easily for most people.
With seemingly every new feature or "upgrade" Substack moves beyond its core competency. Notes is a social step too far and will go the way of Clubhouse.
I disagree! But I’m curious why you believe this?
98% of the people that use Twitter have never heard of substack. I see no reason to leave Twitter. I don't care who owns it or who runs it. Everything else that tries to come along is an also ran and a waste of time signing up.
Is that true though? If your main goal is conversion to paid subscribers, it’s likely much easier to convert someone from Notes than from Twitter. There’s far less steps involved
Love this article! And I totally agree. If anyone is looking to understand more about Notes and how it differs from Twitter, check out my Notes on the topic!
https://substack.com/profile/31540513-taegan-maclean/note/c-14708599
Ever since I started using Substack Notes your Notes have been showing up in my feed even though I didn't subscribe to you.
It's probably a bug, but I figured I'd just go ahead and check out your blog anyway.
So here I am.
Interesting...is it just in your home feed or is it also in your subscribed feed? I honestly don't want my content showing up anywhere it's not wanted. Maybe trying unsubscribing or muting me?
Unsubscribing fixed the issue, and you don't show up in my feed anymore -- except your notes that I had already replied to.
Ok resubscribing.
You were showing up in both! Along with all of the Substack restacked stuff that doesn't seem to have an opt-out function.
I'll try unsubscribing and see if you go away, then I'll resubscribe because why not?
Actually that’s because people you subscribe to subscribe to Simon. Your network goes about 1 degree out of who you subscribe to.
This is a common misconception about how Notes works!
Nice, I didn't realize it worked that way.
Showing friends of friends is a smart way to weight an algorithmic feed! And not too hard to implement either I imagine.
Many of us are writers, but does notes make substack more sticky for your average reader? If it does, we're in business.
The top of the funnel needs to retain and convert down the funnel.
I'm biased. I love substack, let's say if I got my brother to come to notes I'm pretty sure he'd find it pretty cringe and pointless as it is today.
I think lots of interesting takes there:
1. I think notes is definitely very interesting. It has the potential to turn full on social networking and thus now fully in line to compete with Twitter as formally acknowledged by Twitter owner by his ego-centric stupidities.
2. However, jumping to the point that it is here to be Twitter killer is a bit too early? Yes, it is formal competition now. But this also now puts the Substack team through a real test and more so their product management.
3. Why product management? Because notes is nice, but as visible it is clearly not sophisticated yet. It's meshing with other features is already a bit confusing. The product would need to start working much more rapidly to live up to expectations rising faster than users and revenues and much more than capacity to develop and deliver. Twitter on the other hand has no one rooting for them (except the fans of bravado and the investors of the 44B throw away), so just any random one good step could help them.
4. The sheer scale of Twitter users is a long way for Substack to match (I am rooting for them to get there). But that's the constraint of network effects. Once some is there, it's very difficult to undo it (definitely doable).
5. I find Ben Thompson's argument that Twitter never figured it's PMF very convincing. I am curious to learn what is Substack's PMF.
6. On the other hand, I am curious to know your more details views on why you don't see much room for micro payments?
- I think as you mention the reasons writers are loving to be on Substack is because their core problem of monetization directly is solved better by Substack over Twitter/Facebook, who made money using content of others. So that is solving for writers/content creators.
- On the other hand the consumer side problem is - A. 95% users (certainly +90%) in the world don't have the willingness to pay for subscriptions. B. Even if I wish to, It's just difficult to live and manage with so many subscriptions. I love a lot of writers and authors. But cannot subscribe to everyone.
- For #A above, Ads have worked forever and I think will continue to work. Ofcourse It needs better revenue sharing models. For B. Micro payments solves the problem for users. Or at least, to begin with - Substack may have to do aggregated payments.
If you have written more about the case of micro payments before, would love to learn. Thanks.
This is such a great comment! Can you link Bens article on Twitter PMF?
Here it is - https://stratechery.com/2021/twitter-has-a-new-ceo-what-about-a-new-business-model/
Thanks so much!
Will do.
“The real incentive that keeps creators glued to any particular platform is its ability to help them make money.”
Bingo. We don't want to make people like Zuckerberg billionaires by monetizing our work. That shouldn't be too hard to understand. Notes may or may not help this, but the truth is that Substack doesn't make money unless we make (more) money, so they're trying different things to help. It's 100x more than FB has ever done for us, and Substack is still relatively new.
I left Twitter many months ago. It's remarkable how much I don't miss it.
Most (though not all) of the voices I follow are on Substack, so Notes works well for me (albeit the need for improved features).
I'm not sure that we'll ever have a situation again where so many congregate on one platform...perhaps that's a good thing.
I think you overestimate how hard Mastodon is to use and underestimate its continued growth.
There's nice iOS, Mac, and Android clients (Ivory, Mona, Fedilab, in order, for just three), which take out the pain of following people on the web version and they feel very intuitive. There's still no native post quoting, but that'll happen soon and there are already workarounds in many of the apps.
Mastodon still has growing pains but there's lots of momentum, and far less drama. And depending on the instance you join, you are far less likely to ever come across the covid hucksters, the alt-right, the tankies, and the truly awful people like Grammm LineAHand that Substack thrives on.
I'm already seeing the promise of Notes and happy to give up Twitter when Notes works out the kinks and reaches critical mass.
Could be
Of course if we’re just abandoning Twitter because of Elon then it stands to reason that we could return if/when somebody else takes charge
To the extent that that ever happens and assuming this individual isn’t an even more hateful sociopath