The platform recently won a clutch of headlines - positive and negative - for paying six-figure advances to writers (and, more recently, podcasters) to start writing on its platform. These investments complement Substack’s better-publicized effort to attract writing talent. “We’re primitive on everything,” he said. That process, McKenzie stressed, is in an early stage. We’re setting about building an entire infrastructure. “We’ve always thought that it’s not enough to offer some disparate tools. “The idea is that you’re not having to figure out everything by yourself,” McKenzie said. In addition to a legal defense fund, Substack Defender, a curriculum of online courses, called Substack Grow, and a Slack channel it built in-house, in May the startup acquired People & Company, an audience and community management consultancy, in hopes of helping its writers build community with their audiences. The Letter acquisition is the latest in a string of moves and investments Substack has made to support its writers. Though it never turned into a breakout hit - the most popular exchanges on Letter have gathered just tens of thousands of views - Letter got a wide range of public intellectuals, ranging from Noam Chomsky to Yuval Noah Harari to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to at least try the service out.Īccess to a technology that would allow Substack’s authors to connect and collaborate more topped Substack’s reasons for acquiring the startup, cofounder Hamish McKenzie said. Letter allows people to send public notes to one another, giving audiences a look at the resulting exchange. Substack, newly flush with venture capital funding, is countering with features and services designed to support writers, not just as independent businesses, but as thinkers and authors, connecting writers to one another and aiming to foster more community between its writers and their readers. The acquisition comes as Substack’s biggest, newest competitors are trying to position newsletters as one hub in a larger relationship between creators and their audience. ![]() Letter, outside of a small round of angel investment, has never raised any venture capital. Neither Letter nor Substack revealed the price of the transaction. What tipped me over the edge was realizing all the ways Substack is truly - for now - not like the other platforms.Digiday has learned that the publishing platform has acquired Letter, a kind of public correspondence startup founded by Dayne and Clyde Rathbone. But even that wasn’t enough to push me into it. ![]() Notes is a natural appendage to writing the Healthy Rich newsletter on the platform. I thought I’d never give in to a new social media platform again. I don’t have any remaining energy for more than a passive (periodically ravenous) enjoyment of TikTok, and I can’t muster even a glancing interest in the many platforms competing for Twitter defectors. And, even if it does, isn’t it just another social media platform? How many times will hopeful millennials put ourselves through this heartbreak? How many times will enterprising solopreneurs be energized by possibility, only to have the algorithmic rug yanked out from under us? This company doesn’t have a good track record with transphobic and racist users, and it doesn’t show any signs of changing its First Amendment–absolutist tack. Lauren Segal for The New York Times By Tiffany Hsu Published April 13, 2022. ![]() I’m afraid to be hoodwinked into believing Substack can be different. 184 From left, Substack co-founders, Hamish McKenzie, Chris Best and Jairaj Sethi, in their San Francisco office. I’m tired of being disappointed by every attempt at social media. ![]() Every platform starts out a “genteel” landscape to connect with interesting people and eventually devolves into a racist, transphobic hellscape we’re all trying to win. A loyal millennial, I gave most of the majors a spin over the years: MySpace, Reddit, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Slack groups and - omg - remember Ello? I still have some lingering accounts, but I’m tired. I’ve been using social media since the mid-aughts, when they were still called social networks.
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