What's the matter with Substack?
Apologies in advance for what’s certain to be a whiny post. I have a lot of frustrations with Substack, and I’m just going to dump them all here, so I can move on. The politics of the owners and the abysmal state of viable publishing options today are outside the scope of this effort. Right now, I want to focus on how Substack, as an artistic tool, is shitting the bed.
1. For some reason, it keeps trying to be Twitter.
I thought we were all onboard with the idea that social media is a scourge upon humanity. Or at least those of us on Substack. Isn’t that why we’re here, in at least a roundabout way? To produce and/or consume material that engages us at a level deeper than what’s commonly available through our usual run of algorithms? It’s certainly why I’m here—as both a writer and a reader.
But Substack, for some reason, seems intent on selling itself to me as an alternative to Twitter.1 Which I left for a reason. On one hand, I get it. Kind of. But I think it’s wrongheaded. Yes, Twitter was overrun by bigots, so maybe we need a new Twitter. But, to my mind, the Nazis were more a symptom than the problem. The problem was structural. Twitter—with its algorithmic nervous system—was optimized to stratify its users. It promoted flame wars, rigid thinking, and all-around anti-social behavior. I really did not like the me who logged onto Twitter. And I’m not enthusiastic to re-summon him. I eventually deleted the app from my phone, because it was damaging my relationship with my family. My hand would reach for the phone without my realizing it, and I’d suddenly find myself in an argument with an anonymous stranger at the dinner table. I’ve since deleted my account altogether.
I have not yet deleted the Substack app from my phone, but I’ve gotten close a few times. What I have done is place it in a hidden folder, behind a mandatory face scan, so I have to go out of my way to find and open it. And the reason was that I was getting hard core Twitter vibes from the experience. The desktop app is still pretty good, but the phone app is a nightmare. And the reason is Notes.
2. Notes is ruining Substack.
You can tell that Notes is doing its all to be the new Twitter by how every seventh post is someone praising how much Notes is not Twitter. And you can see the old dynamic at work in the endless arguments about AI, in which everybody somehow has the exact right opinion about the most confounding media development of our lifetimes. And feel no compunction about restating it ad nauseam. You can see it in the endless self-promotion. The disassociated bon mots. The fist-waving at news events. What could be the central square of an online writer’s community is effectively a giant Me Machine.
And it would be one thing if Notes was cordoned off behind its own tab. But the app, upon opening, defaults to Notes. The “For You” page in particular, in which the algorithm feeds you stuff sort of related to who you choose to follow, but also gets pretty vibey. The algorithm seems pretty invested in getting me invested in dumb arguments between people I don’t know. Yes, I can opt to just to see notes from people I follow, but that takes some digging.
As does finding the feed of actual long-form posts or essays from the newsletters I follow. Supposedly the app’s raison d’etre. It’s not exactly hidden, but neither is it really highlighted. And the UX for that function is pretty dismal. It’s little more than a timeline dump. And again, remember: This is what Substack is for!
You can tell a lot about a designer’s goal by what they chose to make effortless and what they choose make a task. If you walk into a corner store and are immediately confronted by a rack full of dildos and porno mags, you get a sense of the owner’s marketing intentions.
3. The phone app encourages short, dumb engagement.
The thing that bothers me the most about the phone app is that it literally won’t let me use it for what I want to use it for. I didn’t join Substack for its algorithmic social media feed. I really didn’t even join to read other people’s essays.2 I joined it to write. And the app is designed to do pretty much everything but that.
Technically speaking, you can write actual posts on your phone. But Substack discourages it. On good days, I can find the tab that lets me start a post3, but unless I finish it in one shot, without ever leaving the app, I have to eventually go to my laptop to continue. There’s no way I’ve found to get to my Drafts folder from the phone.
This is probably not an issue for most people, who I’d assume prefer to write with a traditional keyboard. But I like to write on my phone, sitting across from my wife. Or while walking the dogs. I do a lot of opening old drafts and adding a few sentences and then mulling. The phone is great for that kind of thing. And any minute that I’m not writing something is a minute in which I’m likely using my phone for something less healthy. (Like scrolling through Notes.)
And the thing is—again!—this is an app for writers! Here’s how Wikipedia describes Substack…
Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription-based content, including newsletters, podcasts, and video. It allows writers to send digital content directly to subscribers.
Notice how neither the phrases “social media” nor “Twitter replacement” are included in that description? I realize that Wikipedia does not set the agenda for Substack, but it’s still indicative of how Substack is perceived in the cultural consciousness. And yet its official app has only a passing interest in what the world wants from it.
4. It’s the unrealized potential that’s so heartbreaking.
The Apple app store is brimming full with useless, vacuous apps. One more isn’t the problem. The problem is that Substack could be amazing. And there are a minority of newsletter who seem to get that. No thanks to Substack.
Substack is not just a newsletter service. It’s a whole multi-media distribution center. You can publish articles. You can publish serialized novels. You can upload audio that gets published as a post while routing directly into podcast feeds. Same with videos, which can also be routed right onto YouTube. You can use this service as the kernel of an unfolding media empire. Or you can fucking beef about exactly how AI is destroying the internet. One seems like it has a lot of growth potential for individual artists. And the other, I suppose, looks impressive on quarterly revenue reports.
Incentivizing shallow engagement seems a shortsighted gambit to me. Especially for a service that targets people who clearly want to sink into something thoughtful. Imagine a different version of the app. One which used its algorithm to offer essays you might want to read. One that fostered an environment of mutual-recommendation instead of shouting to be heard. One that allowed for taste-makers to emerge and communities to emerge like mycelial structures.
I’m not saying that the app can’t be used for any of that stuff now. But it’s not optimized for it.
And as a result, it’s something else.
Your reward for slogging through all that grievance is this completely unrelated video of David Lynch and his boys…
I absolutely refuse to use the new swastika name.
That doesn’t even require an account.
It’s a tertiary option when you push a button the write on the Notes page.
I agree with all of this. I dislike most of what Notes feeds me, and don’t see the logic behind it.
I have no idea what you're talking about, I love Substack, I only use it for reading but your self description in terms of how you used Twitter kind of explains what's happening here. However since you also use the word "dump" well... you definitely accomplished that.