It's Substack's universe—we're just living in it
Plus: As John Lennon once said, "Its cleanup time."
Good morning.
I hope everyone’s week is going alright. Lots of news out there, huh?
Monday’s newsletter was long (thank you as always for indulging me those playlist posts) so I’ll keep it tight today.
Let’s get to it.
Big story from Charlotte Klein (of “Can the Media Survive?” fame) in New York magazine last week. This one was called “The New Substack Universe.”
I remember back in 2020-2021 when it seemed as if every other week there was a story about Subtack, how some place was afraid of Substack, or how some other place wanted to be Substack. This piece gave me a little bit of that vibe.
There isn’t much new in the story that you haven’t read about here (or many, many, many other places) but Klein does a nice job of summarizing things. A key quote to ground us:
“And this is Substack’s moment, it seems. Thanks to a combination of forces—the decimation of Twitter, the collapse of the media industry, the explosion in demand for video and audio content, and the reemergence of Trump—Substack has escaped its humble newsletter beginnings to become a juggernaut collective of independent voices. If you’re looking to start a media operation, it’s now the place to do so: The Free Press, The Bulwark, Zeteo, and The Ankler are among those housed there. If you’re an established journalist or personality looking for your next act — Paul Krugman, Joy Reid, Taylor Lorenz, etc.—do it on Substack. Pete Buttigieg all but announced his future presidential run on there.”
That certainly is the state of things!
Substack has become more than an email service provider—it is a CMS, is has a feed surface for discovery and recommendations, it has community-building tools, and with its paywall functionality across the different atoms of content it allows people to make use of (posts, comments, chats) everyone can build their own marketing funnel and become a marketing expert by trial and error.
Substack has rolled out a lot of features and is now more of a home to “creators” broadly than it once was to writers. But, as Klein points out, “even those who’ve resisted new features and kept their newsletters largely text based continue to see an uptick, like journalist Max Read, who writes the twice-weekly Read Max newsletter. ‘To the extent there’s been a Trump bump in the media, it’s all going to Substackers. I cover tech, not really politics. But I saw incredibly fast growth—it seems to finally be plateauing—between late October/the election last year and two or three weeks ago,’ he said. ‘I was growing twice as fast as I’d been in the months before that.’”
There’s even more good stuff from Klein. This quote, I think, is the most telling about where the action is now and where it has been moving consistently for some time.
“Sports journalism has basically migrated to the platform, and food media seems not far behind—if not already there. In the past few months, renowned cookbook author and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi joined Substack, as did Ballerina Farm influencer Hannah Neeleman. ‘That’s just such a clear indicator to me of how much money there is to be made,’ said chef and writer Clare de Boer. ‘There’s no one that is too big for Substack.’ Live video seems particularly suited for the food category. Substack last week hosted a live three-day food festival called Grubstack featuring top food writers and chefs like de Boer, José Andrés, Ottolenghi, Caroline Chambers, and David Lebovitz participating in live conversations, cook-alongs, and virtual tastings.”
Every week, it seems, a new Substack is started in food or sports or tech or music or any other subject area you might be interested in. And those Substacks are started by personalities, voices, or bylines you recognize to some extent.
I subscribed to Clare De Boer’s Substack because it was recommended to me in another Substack. I’m not paying yet, but I might be tempted to because of the aspirational life (and recipes) she offers up in each of her updates.
As I’ve mentioned, I work for a food media brand. De Boer is our competition and also a potential partner. And each day, no matter what subject or subjects you cover or offer a service in, there is a new potential competitor or partner crowding the space for attention and subscriber dollars.
And how established media brands account for and navigate that is going to be the big question over the next one to three years. Because Substack isn’t going away.
How many subscription offerings it can support is another question—but demand doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Not yet at least. And no matter how good AI gets, you’re still gonna need cool people or good writers with personality and style to tell you what shit is worth doing, buying, and paying attention to.
One clean-up quote
“But right now, the media industry is in an entirely different phase: a ‘clean-up’ of companies launched during the digital surge of the 2010s. Advertising and audience headwinds, AI disruption,restless investors looking for exits,and fewer strategic buyers all point to a final wave of acquisitions driven by the hunt for stable (and profitable) properties. There’s a parade of familiar media brands on the block—officially or informally—and it’s no secret that valuations are not what they once were…In this market, it may be less about finding the next billion-dollar media breakout and more about surviving the shakeout. The real winners have to create and maintain franchise value while figuring out how to harness the power of AI, adapt quickly to shifting consumption habits, and hold onto audience loyalty when it matters most.”
This quote is from the “Anonymous Banker” section of last week’s newsletter edition of People vs. Algorithms. This is a new segment where the guys have an Anonymous Banker come on and talk about business valuations and where private equity and venture capital are moving. It’s not bad so far! The whole newsletter this past week was full of interesting ideas about where the media is going but I thought this quote spoke to the current moment very well.
More links to clean things up
Speaking of where things are going, NiemanLab had a good story about Jake Fischer who is an NBA reporter delivering scoops for Mark Stein’s Substack. Stein is one of the most respected NBA reporters out there. He was let go from ESPN in 2017, went to the New York Times, and then started his own Substack in 2021. Now he has a young reporter filing scoops to him. The world will have more and more of these small enterprises with former talent from large media organizations building communities around their expertise and trust with audiences.
You mess with Google, you get burned part 100. Really surprised to see Dotdash Meredith feeling the brunt in this story from Business Insider. The issue this time? Working with freelancers whose bylines on product reviews appeared on multiple outlets or who worked for companies who provided product review content to these larger media organizations caused several big websites to get dinged.
On the product review beat, The Media Copilot took a look at what AI might do to product review sites. Short summary: More people are using AI chat surfaces for product searches, but they are not converting at the same rate as they are from Google—yet.
Two stories to remind you that conservative media is dominant.
This was a really good New Yorker story about young, white, “independent-minded” males who voted for Trump and the kinds of media they consume.
After her interview in the New York Times, Jessica Lessin also spoke to Dylan Byers on the Grill Room podcast.
Also from Puck a good story about DraftKings getting out of the content business and how many platforms or SaaS businesses think they should be in the content business only to realize how hard it is.
Last week, Ziff Davis (publisher of Lifehacker, CNET, and PCMag among other titles) bought The Skimm. Shouts to 2016-2018 when a link in the Skimm’s morning Daily Skimm newsletter could help a story “do numbers” as was once said.