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Replying to and
I've chatted with Chris and Hamish. Great guys, and the fundamental sanity they seem to be bringing to this is a big part of the reason I got on board in April 2019, about a year before the bluechecks began discovering it. But their job is going to be really tough here very soon.
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To lower singleton-subscriber risk associated with big bluechecks (ie readers only subscribed to say Greenwald), the most obvious option is to drive cross-promotion. Ie, attach their readers to other writers too, so platform revenue isn't sensitively dependent on 800lbers.
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But the *moment* you decide to exercise the cross-promotion option, you're no longer editorially neutral. You're moving away from variance and towards bias on the bias-tvariance tradeoff curve.
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The thing is, the easiest cross-promotion to do is the kind that reinforces existing tribes. A "if you like this, you'll like this also" approach will hook greenwald subscribers up to writers who are also like greenwald. Going against grain will be hard.
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Along-the-grain cross-promotion will lower fragility a bit wrt single 800lb bluechekerillas, but simply bump the fragility up a level to an existing tribe. Patreon discovered this the hard way. Now you have to scenario-plan the exit risk revenue hit of entire tribes.
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Worse, the tribes will realize it too, and will achieve a platform-local tribal consciousness and begin trying to "own" the platform, regardless of whatever the cross-promotion algorithms do along/against the grain. The platform will be drawn into a fight against its own readers.
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I think Substack is doing many of the right things for the current stage of the platform. For example, focusing hard on empowering writers rather than readers, and doing a lot for beginning writers trying to build an audience... that's all good.
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Reshape the curve away from 800lb bluecheckerrila dependence. Ideal for people like me, the mid-level non-brand-name types would be if substack could afford to lose any single bluecheck and never have to go to cross-promotion at all. This requires healthy margins from long tail
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This is why it is short-sighted to complain about their high fee percentage (10% on top of credit card fees as opposed to say the fixed fee of ghost or mailchimp). They need to be making enough money off the long tail to resist the pressures created by 800lbers.
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No. They take 10% per sub, so it’s almost irrelevant whether it is 1 bluecheck with 50k subs, or 50 ordinary writers with 1k subs each. Long tail prob better since they may need to offer big whales lower commission deals. It’s a kind of progressive tax on bigger names actually.
Replying to
I guess I was thinking fixed fee per writer, a la costco / prime (w some kind of free tier thrown in for smaller audiences). Regressive, but better aligns their business model w the long tail (forces them to grow writers, not subs) relative to per sub fees
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