I agree. Substack charges too much for its "toll road". Yearly/monthly charges are too high when compared to yesteryear's newspaper subscriptions. Lower the prices: more paying subscribers will pay
Upon reading this piece, I immediately went to review my subscriptions. I count 19 paying subscriptions in total.
i also came to the realization that for at least 4 of them, i havent seen any content in a while. digging deeper, two of the creators have paused billing. good men. but another one has not paused yet been quiet for over 1yr. i paid $70 an year for nothing. another one has lowered annual fee to $100 for new subscribers however somehow i was renewed at the old rate of $150.
i can'ed the last two immediately. ofc.
and that i think represents a problem with the substacks model. as much as i love the platform, there's no one to police or gwtee subscribers get a minimum of what they pay for. we need to be on the constant lookout and managing our subscriptions. and that tiresome.
I still subscribe to WSJ, NYT, FT and other traditional newpapers; and as much as i think they are useless sometime, i know for sure when i wake up there will always be a today's edition.
by no means am I implying Substack creators should create daily. some should, like Bill Biship's flagship Sinocism, and i read it top to bottom everyday. Some publish once a week or biweekly and they are golden too. but i would appreciate if Substack can send me an alert if any of my paid subscriptions havent posted anything for 2 or 3 months. better to know it then, then 1yr later.
I keep thinking about this too, as a writer. If I broke a leg or died or something I would like my (few but very appreciated) paying subscribers to know.
I’d also be happy to charge less per reader and let more readers shop around more newsletters, that would definitely increase paid traffic flow for everyone…
How about allowing readers to pay for individual paywalled articles? Substack could sell me a package of 10 paywalled articles for say $5 or $10 or something like that, and if I encounter any article I want to keep on reading I can use my credit to unlock it.
I have thought about this idea too but my gut feeling tells me there may be some missing risks that I haven't thought fully about, so I hesitate to add that to the list
Then Substack splits the proceeds with the author of course, and that allows the author to access an extra revenue source from casual readers who wouldn’t want to commit to a subscription fee anyway.
That is exactly what Zlick does but for WordPress sites. It would be nice to have that implemented here — sometimes I just want to access 1 piece instead of committing to the whole thing at the monthly price. Just like a sample at Costco.
I get around the problems you listed by not actually having paywalled stuff. So everyone gets everything and people can pay if they specifically want to support me. It definitely isn’t a tactic to maximize income but that’s not my priority anyway.
I would be in favor of the bundling idea and I do think many things here need some reconsidering, so I’d be happy to join the petition as long as it isn’t advocating for ads in any way.
Ugh, yes. I would love to subscribe to more writers here, but I can't justify the expense. $5/month isn't really bad for one subscription, but I'm sure there are at least 10 I would consider subscribing to... if that wouldn't cost me $50/month. I like being able to pay people directly (well, almost directly, in this case) for the work that they do, and I would definitely spend more on subscriptions if the spend per subscription were lower. As it is, I'm choosing not to choose, and so no one is getting my money. (Well, that and a billing issue that I couldn't easily resolve, which led to my previously paid subscription lapsing, but that's outside the scope of this post.)
Integrate a Digital Download Store with pay per download, bundle, and subscription offerings that release content over time. Make it easy to embed a link to the store content in a post.
Time Release content. Create the ability to designate some posts to time Release to subscribers to prevent the monthly subscribers who access the whole archive.
Make notes compatible with the fediverse to expand our marketing reach.
Hello Robert, you raise some apposite points and potential solutions. I publish my thoughts and research for free and hae not yet sought subscriptions - although one reader who I follow intensely just went ahead and subscribed! I agree that sub fees are too high. Add me to your petition.
It’s nice to read a well thought out article about a problem you’ve acknowledged in your head but never formalized. I love the customizability of Substack content but making 15 different payments for individual newsletters is just a flat out bad business model and genuinely terrifies me. I agree that not everything should be bundled and I thought maybe that content providers with <X amount of subscribers could be approached in a revenue share for inclusion. Or you could just let people opt in and out, it’s really not that tricky to test and perfect.
Totally agree with the 2 tier pricing! The value of archive is not appreciated enough which only encourages readers to leave after a month or two. At the same time, monthly subscription turns out very expensive with only a few fresh post each month if one were to subscribe at least a few creators.
I 💯 agree!! - have a newspaper/magazine plan. $20-$50/month. Allow to choose 50-100 subs to include in paying. Allow the creators to choose if they want to be included. I am
Constantly switching my paid subscriptions. I can’t afford more than 5-10. Or canceling or pausing. And I feel bad not contributing to all that I read. Because I believe they should be compensated.
I agree. Substack charges too much for its "toll road". Yearly/monthly charges are too high when compared to yesteryear's newspaper subscriptions. Lower the prices: more paying subscribers will pay
Upon reading this piece, I immediately went to review my subscriptions. I count 19 paying subscriptions in total.
i also came to the realization that for at least 4 of them, i havent seen any content in a while. digging deeper, two of the creators have paused billing. good men. but another one has not paused yet been quiet for over 1yr. i paid $70 an year for nothing. another one has lowered annual fee to $100 for new subscribers however somehow i was renewed at the old rate of $150.
i can'ed the last two immediately. ofc.
and that i think represents a problem with the substacks model. as much as i love the platform, there's no one to police or gwtee subscribers get a minimum of what they pay for. we need to be on the constant lookout and managing our subscriptions. and that tiresome.
I still subscribe to WSJ, NYT, FT and other traditional newpapers; and as much as i think they are useless sometime, i know for sure when i wake up there will always be a today's edition.
by no means am I implying Substack creators should create daily. some should, like Bill Biship's flagship Sinocism, and i read it top to bottom everyday. Some publish once a week or biweekly and they are golden too. but i would appreciate if Substack can send me an alert if any of my paid subscriptions havent posted anything for 2 or 3 months. better to know it then, then 1yr later.
I keep thinking about this too, as a writer. If I broke a leg or died or something I would like my (few but very appreciated) paying subscribers to know.
I’d also be happy to charge less per reader and let more readers shop around more newsletters, that would definitely increase paid traffic flow for everyone…
Thanks Lidija! Those are great thoughts. Would you want to join this petition, too?
Yep, I confirmed below ❤️
I wholeheartedly agree. In general, there is much to improve and be more sensible for the economic system here.
How about allowing readers to pay for individual paywalled articles? Substack could sell me a package of 10 paywalled articles for say $5 or $10 or something like that, and if I encounter any article I want to keep on reading I can use my credit to unlock it.
I have thought about this idea too but my gut feeling tells me there may be some missing risks that I haven't thought fully about, so I hesitate to add that to the list
Then Substack splits the proceeds with the author of course, and that allows the author to access an extra revenue source from casual readers who wouldn’t want to commit to a subscription fee anyway.
That is exactly what Zlick does but for WordPress sites. It would be nice to have that implemented here — sometimes I just want to access 1 piece instead of committing to the whole thing at the monthly price. Just like a sample at Costco.
I get around the problems you listed by not actually having paywalled stuff. So everyone gets everything and people can pay if they specifically want to support me. It definitely isn’t a tactic to maximize income but that’s not my priority anyway.
I would be in favor of the bundling idea and I do think many things here need some reconsidering, so I’d be happy to join the petition as long as it isn’t advocating for ads in any way.
This petition won't include ads. The proposals are final for this petition. Thanks for joining!
Thanks for organizing this ❤️
Ugh, yes. I would love to subscribe to more writers here, but I can't justify the expense. $5/month isn't really bad for one subscription, but I'm sure there are at least 10 I would consider subscribing to... if that wouldn't cost me $50/month. I like being able to pay people directly (well, almost directly, in this case) for the work that they do, and I would definitely spend more on subscriptions if the spend per subscription were lower. As it is, I'm choosing not to choose, and so no one is getting my money. (Well, that and a billing issue that I couldn't easily resolve, which led to my previously paid subscription lapsing, but that's outside the scope of this post.)
Alternative pricing models:
Integrate a Digital Download Store with pay per download, bundle, and subscription offerings that release content over time. Make it easy to embed a link to the store content in a post.
Time Release content. Create the ability to designate some posts to time Release to subscribers to prevent the monthly subscribers who access the whole archive.
Make notes compatible with the fediverse to expand our marketing reach.
Thanks for the input! Would you consider joining this petition?
Yes, go ahead and add me
Great ideas!
Hello Robert, you raise some apposite points and potential solutions. I publish my thoughts and research for free and hae not yet sought subscriptions - although one reader who I follow intensely just went ahead and subscribed! I agree that sub fees are too high. Add me to your petition.
I'll add my name to this petition. Do I need to do anything else?
No need, adding now
I hope someone at Substack is listening.
It’s nice to read a well thought out article about a problem you’ve acknowledged in your head but never formalized. I love the customizability of Substack content but making 15 different payments for individual newsletters is just a flat out bad business model and genuinely terrifies me. I agree that not everything should be bundled and I thought maybe that content providers with <X amount of subscribers could be approached in a revenue share for inclusion. Or you could just let people opt in and out, it’s really not that tricky to test and perfect.
Exactly. But Substack team doesn’t seem to be setting their eyes on this big but easy-to-fix problem at all.
Are they not interested in money and engagement?
I think they have more ambition to replace X and TikTok…
Totally agree with the 2 tier pricing! The value of archive is not appreciated enough which only encourages readers to leave after a month or two. At the same time, monthly subscription turns out very expensive with only a few fresh post each month if one were to subscribe at least a few creators.
Did Noah Smith say something ignorant again? I wish he wouldn’t. His non ignorant statements are interesting.
I'll join!
I’ve always thought that having an annual fee that gives you access to a certain number of publications would be ideal
I 💯 agree!! - have a newspaper/magazine plan. $20-$50/month. Allow to choose 50-100 subs to include in paying. Allow the creators to choose if they want to be included. I am
Constantly switching my paid subscriptions. I can’t afford more than 5-10. Or canceling or pausing. And I feel bad not contributing to all that I read. Because I believe they should be compensated.
I've always wanted bundled subscriptions!
Count me in!