Hacker News Reader

Comment by bastawhiz | Hacker News Reader

The whole point of Substack, specifically, is that people can sign up to get your writing via email, no? It sounds like the author is using it for a purpose that it wasn't really intended for.

But also, it's not really a dark pattern. How does Substack benefit from this? The only people getting the email are the ones who signed up. And it costs them money.

And also, it seems like the author has raised a "dark pattern" (singular). They're unhappy that a single checkbox defaults to checked. Which is...pretty benign.

View on HN

> The whole point of Substack, specifically, is that people can sign up to get your writing via email, no?

I think Substack certainly thinks that. And because I believe they think that, I don't think this qualifies as a dark pattern.

But as a user, I don't get that model at all. Why send me an email when I already have the article in the Substack app? The app can already show me the latest posts from the authors I follow. It will notify me if someone responds to my comments. For me, the emails are just extra work that produces no value.

I vastly prefer my email app for consuming information over someone else's app. Put it all in one place.

That makes it even less of a "dark pattern", because you can host Substack on your domain and can download list of both free and paid subscriber and move elsewhere, so that, by using email, Substack habituates readers to THE WRITER, and not to their platform specifically, which would be the case if delivery was standard by their own app only.

Substack has an app?

They benefit by promoting the authors who publish there, because they get a cut of paid subscriptions. They heavily encourage authors to do things to try to get as many subscribers as possible. The defaults are set up to try to get people to enter their email address.

This is incentive-compatible if you’re a professional writer who is trying to make money through paid subscriptions. It’s a bit annoying if you just want to have a blog because you have to turn that stuff off. It’s not hard to configure, though.

Sending posts as email does nothing to get you more subscribers because it only sends to people who are subscribers already.

Yes. But if they're not paid subscribers, there's an opportunity to upsell. If people forget about reading your blog, they're unlikely to want to pay for it.

Also, if they're regular readers then they're more likely to share links elsewhere on the Internet.

I have a Substack with nearly 700 subscribers. I don't even have an option to pay for it. Nothing about the email feature increases the likelihood of Substack making money from my subscribers.

Like you, I have no plans to charge money for my blog. Substack doesn't seem to care about making money from us.

But a lot of Substack's features are targeted towards professional writers who make money from paid subscriptions, giving Substack a cut. We're just along for the ride, so we get those features too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com