12 Comments
User's avatar
Eudoxia's avatar

I enjoy your posts - which come to me, as a free subscriber, as emails - but I subscribe to LOTs of writers so it can get a bit overwhelming. At the same time, I don't want to miss what you've posted.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

I'm the same. I subscribe to 30 stacks, and if they all emailed me I'd never see my emails.

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Kent Anderson's avatar

According to Puck, Substack may be going the way of Medium. They're looking for investors. Medium never found them, that's why they don't pay anymore.

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Geoff Anderson's avatar

I fear that they will begin the enshittification - starting with ads.

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Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

They also have many trumpanzees and Nazis on here, and their hate speech enforcement is almost non existent.

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Janee Jarrell's avatar

I read almost exclusively on Substack and wouldn't mind not getting a single email. The way I look at it, every Substack subscription nets me a redundant email. On top of that, if I read the essay/article as an email, if I want to respond, it sends me to the app or website.

Choose. Either email me or post on Substack, but don't do both. And in my case, if you're going to email me, chances are, you'll lose me.

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Ossiana Tepfenhart's avatar

I mean, I think you already get my emails, right? Unless you're following me and not subbed?

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Janee Jarrell's avatar

I get your emails, but don't read them. I read you on Substack, period. If someone's reading you on Substack, maybe whether or not they get your emails isn't important?

I think Substack needs an email “opt in" subscription model. If I follow someone and subscribe on Substack, then give me the option to receive the same work by email, or not.

I have too much email. It's overwhelming.

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james mack's avatar

Honestly? I read substack on substack. It was my replacement for fascistbook. When i suddenly realized it was also drowning my email inbox, that was kind of a bummer.

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Ossiana Tepfenhart's avatar

So what I would suggest doing is subscribing to either this one directly if you want paid content, or subscribing to my new Atomic newsletter with links---first drop tomorrow!

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Geoff Anderson's avatar

I think what is happening is that Substack is beginning to trim subscriber lists from bounces.

I took my professional newsletter/blog to Ghost, and immediately, after sending a single post, I got notified that about 20% of my long time subscriber list was bouncing (a lot of people are beginning to use temporary emails, or they used their work email and have changed jobs).

I am down about 5% in the last two months, and I wouldn't be surprised that it is due to dead emails.

Earlier, SS would keep those as it boosts the metrics, but now I suspect they are monitoring and culling them. Especially for free subscribers, as each email sent tot he whole list costs them $$$ (Mailgun is not cheap, but they are super reliable)

In short, I suspect there are several culprits.

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Jason Liegois - Author's avatar

Right now I typically only have one post a week, not counting any notes I post.

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