Excellent ideas well expressed! YouTube seems to make fine use of algos to connect people to new content and creators constantly. It's easy to imagine the value of something like that on Substack.
I think YouTube is a great start, although with writing there are so many other things you could do too other than a recommendation algorithm. Coming to the Substack should be like a room of doors going all over the place.
As both a writer and a reader on Substack, I agree.
It is very difficult to find writers who are writing about a topic that I am interested in. It is also very difficult for me to gain visibility from readers who might be interested in my content.
At one time, Writer Recommendations seemed to be a useful means to link readers and writers, but writers seem to have stopped adding new recommendations.
This dynamic risks resulting in a relatively small group of writers getting the lion’s share of subscriptions.
Writer recommendations the way it's implemented I think put too much pressure on people. There are only so many spots and it's so who gets the endorsement. There is a much better way to do this so people feel more comfortable using this feature, and it can work again.
I wish they would adjust note so that it prioritizes notes that are promoting actual publications. Over the past few weeks the notes have felt like Twitter in 2017.
This is why I canceled my Substack after only one post late last year. I tried to do a search through Substack to see what appealed to me as a reader and found it to be a near impossibility - for many of the reasons you stated. I thought: why should I waste my time writing a Substack; if I can't find something that interests me, how will anyone else find me.
I think a lot of people feel that way. The platform was designed to send out emails and they've never thought more about the user experience for people coming here to actually read things.
Digital dinosaur here about to say something probably ridiculous. Substack should be a library. It should have a Dewey Decimal System and trained librarians. I believe all this new-fangled technical innovation should stop ignorings how people used to have better experiences learning and communicating before robots started pushing us around.
Discovering content should be led by sentient guides, not by machines with ulterior motives, usually related to profits. I would also like to have the ability to purchase a subscription from Substack with an editor who goes through Substack and brings forth interesting, informative and novel content. I also would really love to segregate videos to their own category so I could avoid them.
At the very least it needs to have an index like the NYT and a way to categorize the viewpoints of the writers (liberal or conservative etc) and an index based on academic specialties plus an index based on literary styles (science fiction, historical novels etc)
i totally agree. you had it at "substack should be a limitless magazine with an endless supply.."
it should quite literally be that, a layout similar to newspapers or pop magazines, with the first few paragraphs of a whole wide mix of articles to hook you and tap into read the full ones, with endless scrolling. mix in a few photos and Notes, but focused on the articles.
i also find it really weird that aren't just conventional categories to browse, that I've found at least.
My main discovery engine is investigating what my subscribers subscribe to.
I try to be a discovery engine for my readers by promoting articles in Notes that I think my readers may be interested in.
Real Clear has been good about promoting articles on Substack. It's a discovery engine, of sorts. Several of mine have been promoted there. This brought in a ton of readers, but hardly any subscribers.
A Yahoo-style directory might be helpful. Substack could probably crowdsource it. A few statistics might be helpful in the directory: number of subscribers, average open rate. Average ratio of likes to reads.
I think you're mistaken about Substack having the economic potential that the magazine industry once had. (Although it may well have the same cultural potential). Magazines were profitable mostly because of the advertising, not the subscriptions. Even if Substack had an ad platform - which I think it should - it would not be able to generate the kind of ad revenues as the magazines once did because online advertising is not as profitable as print advertising.
A year ago, Notes was marginally useful for finding interesting pieces and new writers. The advice for anyone starting a Substack was to engage heavily with Notes. Back then, people still mainly used Notes to promote their writing, along with the writing of others that they liked. People still use it like that sometimes, but not as much. As new people joined, most of them used Notes for X-style microblogging. Notes is no longer an engine for discovering things on Substack but a slightly more upscale X or Bluesky. When Substack first launched Notes, the Notes were shared widely with people you didn’t know. These days, the Notes algorithm is noticeably more incestuous, largely circulating Notes in tightly-bounded clusters with people who already read one another instead of reaching new readers.
The algorithm IS incestuous! I feel that I am exposed to writers that are similar to what I already follow or subscribe to. I think I am mostly fine with that because I follow a wide variety of authors and subject matter. Also I think the subscription process is excellent . An author can recommend people to follow and subscribe to. This has to have a beneficial network effect where the quality of your experience on Ss is enhanced the more writers you subscribe to! Another thing Frank, if you’re up for it is to share maybe 10 or so. You seem to be impressed by a number of writers I think I would love to subscribe to them. Chris Cilliza of the So What Substack recently shared a list and it was great!
I have used ChatGPT to identify people to subscribe to. It’s worked ok so far, but today is just day 14 on here for me. This is a great article. Lots to think about here.
The only type of discovery I am aware of is the recommendations from people you follow, who likely are people they follow. One can search but I find it easier to use a search engine to find things in a Substack search. The problem with people like people whom you follow is that, unless you have a very eclectic group you follow, it reinforces the same ideas and opinions.
I look for divergent opinions, try to pressure test my assumptions and consider ideas critically and with an open mind. Most people are not like me.
Substack is responding to the market demand for making people comfortable. I would rather grow and develop as a person than stagnate like deadwood in the comfort of the bog.
It's also so very limiting. I don't just want to talk with the people I already know, but want to find new people. As a writer, I want others to find my work too. And as a reader I want to read widely. I already sub to the people I know.
Thanks for sharing these ideas, Frank. Just wanted to respond to a few of them because I feel exactly the opposite.
"They’re difficult to search." You can search using any keyword or topic you'd like!
"There are few leaderboards or lists." There are a ton of them at the top of the homepage: https://substack.com/home
"There are no links from one thing to the next." The second you subscribe to one publication, you are given the option to subscribe to publications they like.
"It doesn’t feel like arriving at a media company, a newsstand, a forum, a literary journal, a newspaper, or a nexus of ideas." That's correct. This isn't Medium which will serve up an algorithm of things. It will only serve up people you follow and the people they follow. It's a network so you find people the same way you find what book to read next, through other people who have the same taste as you.
"If I come to read interesting takes on politics, how do I find them? If I want to read short stories or poems or serialized novels, how am I meant to discover the ones I might enjoy?" By following one political writer or fiction writer you like, then seeing who they follow. Or you can click on the politics category or the fiction category: https://substack.com/home/category/76739 / https://substack.com/home/category/284
"The only tool to find anything fresh on Substack is Notes." This is the last place I find anything fresh. I find almost everyone I follow because I followed one person, and they liked this other person. Or because they commented on a post and I replied to them. Or because they commented on my post and I wanted to see their publication. Or because of a recommendation.
"I think it’s great that Paul Krugman is now on Substack. It gives the platform legitimacy. It brings in readers. Does anyone believe, however, if Krugman showed up on Substack still a mere economics professor, he would have the same success?" YES! I didn't have any social media before I came here. My entire audience came from within Substack.
"What about the readers? How are they supposed to find brilliant things to read? How are they supposed to fall down a rabbit hole of curious discovery? Where is our twenty-first-century endless issue of McClures, Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, The New Republic, Time, Esquire, and Rolling Stone?" - I'm not sure I understand. It's so easy to find things to read here. I have discovered so many writers here that I love, and I am constantly falling down a rabbit hole of curious discovery. And those publications you just mention still exist—even better, if you find a writer you like in Esquire, well now you can probably also go follow their substack.
"Substack should link pieces and writers in conversations." That's what Substack does in The Post https://post.substack.com/
"It should help you easily find other pieces from the same writer without having to tediously scroll the back catalogue. It should offer collections of interesting essays on a theme." Substack automatically sends our subscribers an email, sharing random posts they think that reader would like.
"It should hold events like forums and literary festivals." They host these all the time! I've been to two of them already, one in San Francisco and one in New Zealand. I saw they recently held one in New York as well which looked fun.
I guess overall, I just am not sure how their discovery could be better. It's already better than all media organizations and all platforms. But I've also been reading here for four years now before there was even recommendations, so every add has felt like a huge one to me, and I'm constantly finding new writers I love all the time. To me it feels like the first place I have been able to find writers I like, and also find readers for the things I write.
Maybe I've just become a diehard at this point haha, but I'm definitely a fan!
back in like 2010 this app called flipboard was exactly what you wanted, but sourced from all over the internet. if substack literally just made flipboard it would be great https://about.flipboard.com/
I feel like I'm missing something here. What about "Explore" in the menu? That's how I found this.
I agree it could be much better. It doesn't rotate recommendations often enough. And as a new writer, in this AI day and age, I think they should be able to automatically connect folks who might be interested in my work to my work. I'm fairly niche, it's not like I'm trying to compete with umpteen thousand political writers (no offense.) All the more reason substack should be able to hook me up with the three people who'd like to read me. Niche writers need algorithmic assistance to find ANY readers! Substack could excel at that if they wanted.
Nonetheless, gotta ask...am I the only one with Explore in their menu?
I'm on the website, on my phone, it's in the three-line menu icon in the upper right. Upper right on desktop, too. Except on sites with super custom layouts. I don't use the app.
Excellent ideas well expressed! YouTube seems to make fine use of algos to connect people to new content and creators constantly. It's easy to imagine the value of something like that on Substack.
I think YouTube is a great start, although with writing there are so many other things you could do too other than a recommendation algorithm. Coming to the Substack should be like a room of doors going all over the place.
As both a writer and a reader on Substack, I agree.
It is very difficult to find writers who are writing about a topic that I am interested in. It is also very difficult for me to gain visibility from readers who might be interested in my content.
At one time, Writer Recommendations seemed to be a useful means to link readers and writers, but writers seem to have stopped adding new recommendations.
This dynamic risks resulting in a relatively small group of writers getting the lion’s share of subscriptions.
Writer recommendations the way it's implemented I think put too much pressure on people. There are only so many spots and it's so who gets the endorsement. There is a much better way to do this so people feel more comfortable using this feature, and it can work again.
I wish they would adjust note so that it prioritizes notes that are promoting actual publications. Over the past few weeks the notes have felt like Twitter in 2017.
This is why I canceled my Substack after only one post late last year. I tried to do a search through Substack to see what appealed to me as a reader and found it to be a near impossibility - for many of the reasons you stated. I thought: why should I waste my time writing a Substack; if I can't find something that interests me, how will anyone else find me.
I think a lot of people feel that way. The platform was designed to send out emails and they've never thought more about the user experience for people coming here to actually read things.
Digital dinosaur here about to say something probably ridiculous. Substack should be a library. It should have a Dewey Decimal System and trained librarians. I believe all this new-fangled technical innovation should stop ignorings how people used to have better experiences learning and communicating before robots started pushing us around.
Discovering content should be led by sentient guides, not by machines with ulterior motives, usually related to profits. I would also like to have the ability to purchase a subscription from Substack with an editor who goes through Substack and brings forth interesting, informative and novel content. I also would really love to segregate videos to their own category so I could avoid them.
That is all.
At the very least it needs to have an index like the NYT and a way to categorize the viewpoints of the writers (liberal or conservative etc) and an index based on academic specialties plus an index based on literary styles (science fiction, historical novels etc)
i totally agree. you had it at "substack should be a limitless magazine with an endless supply.."
it should quite literally be that, a layout similar to newspapers or pop magazines, with the first few paragraphs of a whole wide mix of articles to hook you and tap into read the full ones, with endless scrolling. mix in a few photos and Notes, but focused on the articles.
i also find it really weird that aren't just conventional categories to browse, that I've found at least.
That's exactly what I think too!
I agree with your diagnosis.
My main discovery engine is investigating what my subscribers subscribe to.
I try to be a discovery engine for my readers by promoting articles in Notes that I think my readers may be interested in.
Real Clear has been good about promoting articles on Substack. It's a discovery engine, of sorts. Several of mine have been promoted there. This brought in a ton of readers, but hardly any subscribers.
A Yahoo-style directory might be helpful. Substack could probably crowdsource it. A few statistics might be helpful in the directory: number of subscribers, average open rate. Average ratio of likes to reads.
I think you're mistaken about Substack having the economic potential that the magazine industry once had. (Although it may well have the same cultural potential). Magazines were profitable mostly because of the advertising, not the subscriptions. Even if Substack had an ad platform - which I think it should - it would not be able to generate the kind of ad revenues as the magazines once did because online advertising is not as profitable as print advertising.
A year ago, Notes was marginally useful for finding interesting pieces and new writers. The advice for anyone starting a Substack was to engage heavily with Notes. Back then, people still mainly used Notes to promote their writing, along with the writing of others that they liked. People still use it like that sometimes, but not as much. As new people joined, most of them used Notes for X-style microblogging. Notes is no longer an engine for discovering things on Substack but a slightly more upscale X or Bluesky. When Substack first launched Notes, the Notes were shared widely with people you didn’t know. These days, the Notes algorithm is noticeably more incestuous, largely circulating Notes in tightly-bounded clusters with people who already read one another instead of reaching new readers.
The algorithm IS incestuous! I feel that I am exposed to writers that are similar to what I already follow or subscribe to. I think I am mostly fine with that because I follow a wide variety of authors and subject matter. Also I think the subscription process is excellent . An author can recommend people to follow and subscribe to. This has to have a beneficial network effect where the quality of your experience on Ss is enhanced the more writers you subscribe to! Another thing Frank, if you’re up for it is to share maybe 10 or so. You seem to be impressed by a number of writers I think I would love to subscribe to them. Chris Cilliza of the So What Substack recently shared a list and it was great!
I have used ChatGPT to identify people to subscribe to. It’s worked ok so far, but today is just day 14 on here for me. This is a great article. Lots to think about here.
The only type of discovery I am aware of is the recommendations from people you follow, who likely are people they follow. One can search but I find it easier to use a search engine to find things in a Substack search. The problem with people like people whom you follow is that, unless you have a very eclectic group you follow, it reinforces the same ideas and opinions.
I look for divergent opinions, try to pressure test my assumptions and consider ideas critically and with an open mind. Most people are not like me.
Substack is responding to the market demand for making people comfortable. I would rather grow and develop as a person than stagnate like deadwood in the comfort of the bog.
It's also so very limiting. I don't just want to talk with the people I already know, but want to find new people. As a writer, I want others to find my work too. And as a reader I want to read widely. I already sub to the people I know.
Thanks for the inspiration. Here's my small contribution to addressing the problem: https://ataraxiaorbust.substack.com/p/what-to-read-on-substack
Thanks for sharing these ideas, Frank. Just wanted to respond to a few of them because I feel exactly the opposite.
"They’re difficult to search." You can search using any keyword or topic you'd like!
"There are few leaderboards or lists." There are a ton of them at the top of the homepage: https://substack.com/home
"There are no links from one thing to the next." The second you subscribe to one publication, you are given the option to subscribe to publications they like.
"It doesn’t feel like arriving at a media company, a newsstand, a forum, a literary journal, a newspaper, or a nexus of ideas." That's correct. This isn't Medium which will serve up an algorithm of things. It will only serve up people you follow and the people they follow. It's a network so you find people the same way you find what book to read next, through other people who have the same taste as you.
"If I come to read interesting takes on politics, how do I find them? If I want to read short stories or poems or serialized novels, how am I meant to discover the ones I might enjoy?" By following one political writer or fiction writer you like, then seeing who they follow. Or you can click on the politics category or the fiction category: https://substack.com/home/category/76739 / https://substack.com/home/category/284
"The only tool to find anything fresh on Substack is Notes." This is the last place I find anything fresh. I find almost everyone I follow because I followed one person, and they liked this other person. Or because they commented on a post and I replied to them. Or because they commented on my post and I wanted to see their publication. Or because of a recommendation.
"I think it’s great that Paul Krugman is now on Substack. It gives the platform legitimacy. It brings in readers. Does anyone believe, however, if Krugman showed up on Substack still a mere economics professor, he would have the same success?" YES! I didn't have any social media before I came here. My entire audience came from within Substack.
"What about the readers? How are they supposed to find brilliant things to read? How are they supposed to fall down a rabbit hole of curious discovery? Where is our twenty-first-century endless issue of McClures, Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, The New Republic, Time, Esquire, and Rolling Stone?" - I'm not sure I understand. It's so easy to find things to read here. I have discovered so many writers here that I love, and I am constantly falling down a rabbit hole of curious discovery. And those publications you just mention still exist—even better, if you find a writer you like in Esquire, well now you can probably also go follow their substack.
"Substack should link pieces and writers in conversations." That's what Substack does in The Post https://post.substack.com/
(continued in next comment)
"It should help you easily find other pieces from the same writer without having to tediously scroll the back catalogue. It should offer collections of interesting essays on a theme." Substack automatically sends our subscribers an email, sharing random posts they think that reader would like.
"It should hold events like forums and literary festivals." They host these all the time! I've been to two of them already, one in San Francisco and one in New Zealand. I saw they recently held one in New York as well which looked fun.
I guess overall, I just am not sure how their discovery could be better. It's already better than all media organizations and all platforms. But I've also been reading here for four years now before there was even recommendations, so every add has felt like a huge one to me, and I'm constantly finding new writers I love all the time. To me it feels like the first place I have been able to find writers I like, and also find readers for the things I write.
Maybe I've just become a diehard at this point haha, but I'm definitely a fan!
I use the app on my phone and cannot find anything about explore. I am old and technically incompetent so I could be the problem!
back in like 2010 this app called flipboard was exactly what you wanted, but sourced from all over the internet. if substack literally just made flipboard it would be great https://about.flipboard.com/
I'm thinking of something even grander, but this is a good start.
I feel like I'm missing something here. What about "Explore" in the menu? That's how I found this.
I agree it could be much better. It doesn't rotate recommendations often enough. And as a new writer, in this AI day and age, I think they should be able to automatically connect folks who might be interested in my work to my work. I'm fairly niche, it's not like I'm trying to compete with umpteen thousand political writers (no offense.) All the more reason substack should be able to hook me up with the three people who'd like to read me. Niche writers need algorithmic assistance to find ANY readers! Substack could excel at that if they wanted.
Nonetheless, gotta ask...am I the only one with Explore in their menu?
Where does explore show up?
I'm on the website, on my phone, it's in the three-line menu icon in the upper right. Upper right on desktop, too. Except on sites with super custom layouts. I don't use the app.
Could not find it.
Wild. The url it leads to is https://substack.com/browse/recommendations maybe you can get there directly.