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.
Conversation
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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hm.. not sure I understand this. Doesn't ~any % fee bias them toward the 800lbers relative to a fixed fee system?
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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.
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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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I think the model is self-regulating. Beyond a point the whales can/should roll their own. I think the progressive tax actually stabilizes the long tail by bringing on a lot more writers in the "free" tier who can take their time getting to monetization.

