Me also! I cannot add paid subscriptions because Stripe wants too much info for my comfort. Chris replied to me but that option is not on my Apple Pay supported browser.
FEATURE REQUEST: Lead us out of social media culture and technology, properties inherently unsuitable for a platform aimed at serving writers.
Notes, blog comments and chat all should go. The more this platform looks like all the other social media platforms the less credible it will be. Evidence: the history of Facebook and Twitter, once "the future of the Internet", and now discredited, scorned, and branded as trash piles. Every time a user compares Substack to Twitter, however favorably, that should be seen as a dangerous branding failure.
Writers should be socializing in long form. Long form. Thoughtful long form. A conversational magazine.
As writers, we should have to prove ourselves in order to get in to the magazine. Any system which is open to everybody is destined to be dominated by lowest common denominator mediocrity, a process of content corruption which feeds upon itself and accelerates over time.
(Compromise: Notes is open to everyone, and only those who share quality long form in Notes are invited to be part of the more exclusive and prestigious long form magazine. Notes is improved, the platform's brand is enhanced.)
Attempt to raise the vision of Substack beyond "everything is all about me", a small time, ego fueled, make money on the Internet mindset left over from the 1990s. This original vision for Substack shouldn't be abandoned, just complemented with platform wide social service projects which unite Substackers as a community, and extend the generosity which has worked so well for Substack beyond the borders of this community.
You gave us the best blogging platform on the Net for free. Well done, and thanks! That's working. Don't stop there. Keep going. Build on that success, expand the generosity vision, and push it out in to the world.
Bill Gates was a historic leader in tech. And then he leveraged that success to become a leader on a much bigger and more important stage. Like that.
Substack is headquartered in San Francisco, which I've always seen as being the capital of forward looking thinking in America. Help us do more of that.
So how do I get on the interview list with you? I'd love to tell you my story, not that it's very interesting to me, but it might be to you. Check out my 'Stack and see what I'm all about.
John - most newsletters that only allow paid subscribers to comment invariably have few comments (except the really big newsletters). Worse are the newsletters that don't even allow viewing of comments for free subscribers. Neither of these decisions are a way to build commited readers or to convert readers to paid. No one needs my comment, not even me. I'm not going to pay someone just so that I can throw in my little thoughts that no-one cares about.
I’m sorry. My notifications have been going crazy and it feels like my mind is going in a thousand directions. Can you remind me what I said that prompted this comment?
You seemed to express enthusiasm for only letting paid subscribers to comment on newsletters. This was at the end of the discussion about making extra functionality available to writers who have the paid option turned on. (Which Chris interpreted as making extra functionality available to people who have paying readers, as opposed to having the paid option available - a very different interpretation).
No. I wasn’t advocating for limiting comments to paid subscribers. That’s already available. I was lobbying for the idea that functionality should be extended to people who have enabled paid subscriptions or maybe people who have some minimum number of paid subscribers. Using live-streaming as an example, before today it was only available to best-sellers. I originally going to suggest extending that down to those people who have some paid subscribers. Live streaming is just an example. You could apply it to any new feature.
The goal for my suggestion is to provide motivation for people who are just starting off or who haven’t built up a paid subscriber base yet. Up to this point, Substack has rolled out new features to best sellers and if you’re just starting off that feels like a big mountain to climb and so there isn’t a mad rush to go get 100 paid subscribers because it doesn’t seem possible. But, what if you could unlock some subset of new features by getting 5 or 10 paid subscribers? That’s still a massive accomplishment but it feels much more doable than having to get 100. My goal with the suggestion is to make the funnel larger on the bottom so it gets people more interested in pursuing this. I’m sorry if that didn’t come across and really sorry if it felt like I was advocating for paid comments. I think those can work, but you have to have a very specific use case and need for them.
Oh… I think maybe I know what I said that made you think that. I referenced how Bill Bishop has said that he would like to be able to have the ability to limit comments on his post to only people who had a paid subscription— to any newsletter. Not just his. I do think having that as an option would be a good thing, but really something like that is only really valuable to the big accounts because I’m sure those guys get hit with a lot of spam and link drops. I’m not a big account, but even I have to deal with people finding a post I made that has a lot of likes (based on my standard for a lot) and then sharing iinks to random products that they are trying to sell. I just had a guy do that today in fact. But again, a feature like that should be employed carefully and deliberately because of how alienating it can be to new readers… and that’s important to keep in mind when you’re trying to grow.
You've again noted that you think it would be good to limit comments to paid subs, specifically Bill's broader suggestion (any paid sub, not writer by writer).
I do wonder if DMs are more of an issue for writers, given that the majority of newsletters lament the paucity of comments, rather than the burden of having too many.
The uber newsletters tend not to engage much, if at all, leaving their hundreds or thousands of commenters to chat amongst themselves. They've typically already restricted their comments to pay only, it's not an issue for them.
I just think that anything that puts off readers is a bad thing. Versus providing extra tools to writers who switch on paid, which is a decent idea, and doesn't interfere with the reader's experience on the platform.
I can see that point and, as a reader, I agree with you. It’s why I don’t restrict comments on my posts. That being said, I can see how spam and trolls could become onerous to those guys who have hundreds of thousands of subscribers and who knows how many followers. Those are the people I think would benefit from a feature like this. By expanding it to include any paid sub it does limit comments, but many times that’s what those people actually want.
I’m not at that stage though. I’m like you said where I’m more likely to complain that I’m not receiving any comments rather than worrying about the quality of the comments.
Why does it have to Only be Stripe? Is it the percentage of Stripe fees that you guys make your profits to run Substack on? If so why can’t you do that with Apple Pay or Pay Pal for instance as an optional paying process?
I cannot find any help article that shows me how to add Apple Pay to my Substack posts in Dashboard. Can you point me where that is in a help article! I truly appreciate your response to my comment above. Thank you.
Yes please please a different payment method for our writing!!! Asked this many times!
AlignPay would be great! Stripe is the only thing keeping me from posting here.
Me also! I cannot add paid subscriptions because Stripe wants too much info for my comfort. Chris replied to me but that option is not on my Apple Pay supported browser.
Great interview per usual. John has very interesting questions and ideas.
Great that you inserted yourself in the Twilight Zone exercise, John. Yours was a perfectly crafted Twilight Zone story.
Thank you, Caz.
Chris has a way of asking great question s and then following up with sincere attention.
Yep! He's a great host.
FEATURE REQUEST: Lead us out of social media culture and technology, properties inherently unsuitable for a platform aimed at serving writers.
Notes, blog comments and chat all should go. The more this platform looks like all the other social media platforms the less credible it will be. Evidence: the history of Facebook and Twitter, once "the future of the Internet", and now discredited, scorned, and branded as trash piles. Every time a user compares Substack to Twitter, however favorably, that should be seen as a dangerous branding failure.
Writers should be socializing in long form. Long form. Thoughtful long form. A conversational magazine.
As writers, we should have to prove ourselves in order to get in to the magazine. Any system which is open to everybody is destined to be dominated by lowest common denominator mediocrity, a process of content corruption which feeds upon itself and accelerates over time.
(Compromise: Notes is open to everyone, and only those who share quality long form in Notes are invited to be part of the more exclusive and prestigious long form magazine. Notes is improved, the platform's brand is enhanced.)
Attempt to raise the vision of Substack beyond "everything is all about me", a small time, ego fueled, make money on the Internet mindset left over from the 1990s. This original vision for Substack shouldn't be abandoned, just complemented with platform wide social service projects which unite Substackers as a community, and extend the generosity which has worked so well for Substack beyond the borders of this community.
You gave us the best blogging platform on the Net for free. Well done, and thanks! That's working. Don't stop there. Keep going. Build on that success, expand the generosity vision, and push it out in to the world.
Bill Gates was a historic leader in tech. And then he leveraged that success to become a leader on a much bigger and more important stage. Like that.
Substack is headquartered in San Francisco, which I've always seen as being the capital of forward looking thinking in America. Help us do more of that.
Thank You! Huge great stoty. Love
So how do I get on the interview list with you? I'd love to tell you my story, not that it's very interesting to me, but it might be to you. Check out my 'Stack and see what I'm all about.
Loved the Interview
John - most newsletters that only allow paid subscribers to comment invariably have few comments (except the really big newsletters). Worse are the newsletters that don't even allow viewing of comments for free subscribers. Neither of these decisions are a way to build commited readers or to convert readers to paid. No one needs my comment, not even me. I'm not going to pay someone just so that I can throw in my little thoughts that no-one cares about.
I’m sorry. My notifications have been going crazy and it feels like my mind is going in a thousand directions. Can you remind me what I said that prompted this comment?
You seemed to express enthusiasm for only letting paid subscribers to comment on newsletters. This was at the end of the discussion about making extra functionality available to writers who have the paid option turned on. (Which Chris interpreted as making extra functionality available to people who have paying readers, as opposed to having the paid option available - a very different interpretation).
No. I wasn’t advocating for limiting comments to paid subscribers. That’s already available. I was lobbying for the idea that functionality should be extended to people who have enabled paid subscriptions or maybe people who have some minimum number of paid subscribers. Using live-streaming as an example, before today it was only available to best-sellers. I originally going to suggest extending that down to those people who have some paid subscribers. Live streaming is just an example. You could apply it to any new feature.
The goal for my suggestion is to provide motivation for people who are just starting off or who haven’t built up a paid subscriber base yet. Up to this point, Substack has rolled out new features to best sellers and if you’re just starting off that feels like a big mountain to climb and so there isn’t a mad rush to go get 100 paid subscribers because it doesn’t seem possible. But, what if you could unlock some subset of new features by getting 5 or 10 paid subscribers? That’s still a massive accomplishment but it feels much more doable than having to get 100. My goal with the suggestion is to make the funnel larger on the bottom so it gets people more interested in pursuing this. I’m sorry if that didn’t come across and really sorry if it felt like I was advocating for paid comments. I think those can work, but you have to have a very specific use case and need for them.
Oh… I think maybe I know what I said that made you think that. I referenced how Bill Bishop has said that he would like to be able to have the ability to limit comments on his post to only people who had a paid subscription— to any newsletter. Not just his. I do think having that as an option would be a good thing, but really something like that is only really valuable to the big accounts because I’m sure those guys get hit with a lot of spam and link drops. I’m not a big account, but even I have to deal with people finding a post I made that has a lot of likes (based on my standard for a lot) and then sharing iinks to random products that they are trying to sell. I just had a guy do that today in fact. But again, a feature like that should be employed carefully and deliberately because of how alienating it can be to new readers… and that’s important to keep in mind when you’re trying to grow.
Does that clear things up at all?
Hmm. Not really. 😁
Yes, that function is already available.
You've again noted that you think it would be good to limit comments to paid subs, specifically Bill's broader suggestion (any paid sub, not writer by writer).
I do wonder if DMs are more of an issue for writers, given that the majority of newsletters lament the paucity of comments, rather than the burden of having too many.
The uber newsletters tend not to engage much, if at all, leaving their hundreds or thousands of commenters to chat amongst themselves. They've typically already restricted their comments to pay only, it's not an issue for them.
I just think that anything that puts off readers is a bad thing. Versus providing extra tools to writers who switch on paid, which is a decent idea, and doesn't interfere with the reader's experience on the platform.
I can see that point and, as a reader, I agree with you. It’s why I don’t restrict comments on my posts. That being said, I can see how spam and trolls could become onerous to those guys who have hundreds of thousands of subscribers and who knows how many followers. Those are the people I think would benefit from a feature like this. By expanding it to include any paid sub it does limit comments, but many times that’s what those people actually want.
I’m not at that stage though. I’m like you said where I’m more likely to complain that I’m not receiving any comments rather than worrying about the quality of the comments.
You've still not turned on pay! 😁
This was great but I have to reiterate, @Chris Best your best Live guest is right here, baby.
Why does it have to Only be Stripe? Is it the percentage of Stripe fees that you guys make your profits to run Substack on? If so why can’t you do that with Apple Pay or Pay Pal for instance as an optional paying process?
Stripe supports Apple Pay!
I cannot find any help article that shows me how to add Apple Pay to my Substack posts in Dashboard. Can you point me where that is in a help article! I truly appreciate your response to my comment above. Thank you.
The option should show up automatically in the subscribe flow in browsers that support Apple Pay