How Substack is changing publishing - Featured

How Substack is Changing Publishing. And Why It Matters.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

In a media landscape cracked open by the internet, Substack didn’t just sneak in—it swaggered through the front door. It wasn’t the first newsletter platform. It wasn’t the fanciest or the cheapest. But it was the one that captured the zeitgeist. Writers, journalists, critics, academics, hobbyists—all kinds of voices found a home there. And as legacy media continues to stumble through layoffs, rebranding, and confused monetization strategies, Substack’s simple pitch has become oddly revolutionary: write what you want, send it to your audience, get paid.

What began as a tool for sending email newsletters has morphed into a powerful force reshaping the publishing world. It’s challenging gatekeepers, upending editorial hierarchies, and letting readers put their money where their curiosity is. The disruption is no longer theoretical—it’s material, financial, and cultural.

And it also raises some uncomfortable questions. Is this the end of traditional journalism? Is Substack really democratizing content—or just reshuffling privilege in new ways? Are we building a better ecosystem or just a different kind of echo chamber? And crucially, can the model actually sustain itself as competition thickens and reader attention thins? Let’s explore how Substack is changing publishing, rewriting the rules of publishing, and why we should all be paying very close attention.

The Substack Model: Simplicity as Disruption

At its core, Substack is a newsletter platform with integrated payments. You sign up, start writing, and if you choose, put your content behind a paywall. Readers can subscribe for free or pay a monthly or yearly fee. Substack takes a 10% cut. That’s it. No ads. No SEO trickery. No algorithmic feed prioritization.

But don’t be fooled by the minimalist design. Substack is quietly dismantling a hundred years of publishing infrastructure. Eliminating the need for a publisher, a distributor, or even an editor, in some cases, puts writers face-to-face with their readers. This intimacy has its own gravity. Readers don’t just pay for content—they pay for the voice, the trust, and the perceived authenticity behind it.

It also shifts the power dynamic. In the traditional model, writers had to convince an institution of their worth before getting access to an audience. On Substack, the audience decides. That democratization is not without risks, but it is undeniably more inclusive of emerging, unconventional, and underrepresented voices.

And the economics? They speak volumes. Big names like Glenn Greenwald, Mehdi Hasan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and others have used Substack to break free from corporate oversight. In 2021, Substack reported that its top ten writers were collectively earning over $20 million annually. But what’s just as important is the “long tail” of mid-level earners making between $30,000 and $200,000 a year—enough to replace or supplement full-time incomes. That’s no longer hobbyist blogging. That’s professional, independent publishing.

Journalism Without the Newsroom

One of the more profound disruptions Substack has introduced is in journalism. For decades, being a journalist meant working under an editor within a publication, subject to institutional standards (or pressures). Substack changes that dynamic. Journalists can now write freely, without editorial oversight and institutional support.

This new autonomy has produced both brilliance and controversy. On the one hand, readers get raw, unfiltered reporting. On the other hand, there’s no fact-checking department. No legal team. No gatekeepers.

Supporters argue that this model restores editorial independence. Critics worry that it erodes journalistic integrity. Both are probably right. But it’s worth noting that many writers on Substack bring their own standards and credibility from previous careers. Former The New York Times, Guardian, and Vox reporters are thriving independently. They often adopt rigorous sourcing practices, solicit reader feedback, and issue corrections—all voluntarily.

At the same time, Substack has become a fertile ground for opinion journalism and investigative storytelling that major outlets won’t touch, either due to legal liability, advertiser pressure, or simply lack of pageview potential. It’s given rise to a genre of journalism that is often more opinionated, more experimental, and more agile. That agility is important in an era where news moves faster than editorial cycles.

Still, there are real concerns about bias, sensationalism, and unchecked misinformation. The future will likely demand hybrid models, where Substack creators collaborate with editors or third-party fact-checkers to build reader trust without sacrificing independence.

A New Patronage Economy

Substack represents the rebirth of patronage, just rebranded for the digital age. Instead of wealthy benefactors supporting artists, we now have a crowd-based model: dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of small patrons subscribing to an individual writer.

This changes the economic logic of publishing. Success is no longer about scale—it’s about depth of engagement. A writer with 1,000 loyal subscribers paying $5/month earns $60,000 a year. That’s a modest salary, sure—but it’s also a level of financial independence that’s increasingly rare in traditional media.

It also creates a psychological shift. Writers are no longer beholden to advertisers, pageviews, or publishers. They’re accountable only to their readers. That can lead to better work. It can also lead to echo chambers and unhealthy audience capture—when writers pander to their most vocal paying subscribers just to keep revenue flowing.

This model also presents new challenges in the creative discipline. When the gatekeepers are gone, the temptation to publish hastily or emotionally is strong. The most successful Substackers aren’t just good writers—they’re excellent curators of their own pace and tone. Many treat their newsletters like miniature publications, complete with editorial calendars, feedback loops, and long-term content strategies.

The patronage model isn’t perfect. But it’s functioning—arguably better than the banner ad economy that has flattened so much of online journalism. And in its wake, it’s inspiring similar creator-led platforms to adopt subscriber-first models.

Niche is the New Mainstream

In the Substack ecosystem, generalism is dead. What thrives is specialization. You can write about leftist macroeconomics, Nordic cuisine, speculative theology, or the history of medieval board games—and find an audience for it. Maybe not a massive audience. But a committed one.

This is a tectonic shift. Traditional publishing was constrained by space, cost, and mass appeal. Substack has none of those limitations. It encourages narrowcasting over broadcasting. That’s good news for weird thinkers, underrepresented communities, and hyper-focused subject experts. It’s also good for readers sick of generic content churned out by media conglomerates playing it safe.

Think of it as micro-media for the long tail. A newsletter about public transportation policy in American cities might only attract 4,000 readers, but those 4,000 readers might include city planners, policy wonks, and local officials. That’s influence that doesn’t show up in Nielsen ratings.

But this specialization has a downside, too. When everyone is reading within their niche, does the public square start to fracture? Do we lose the shared experiences that big newspapers once offered? The answer depends on how much cross-pollination platforms like Substack can engineer. The challenge ahead isn’t how to grow audiences, but how to diversify them without diluting the content.

Substack vs. Academia: A Subtle Rivalry

Academia hasn’t fully reckoned with what Substack means yet—but it should. The platform is becoming a space where scholars communicate with public audiences on their own terms. And unlike academic journals, Substack offers immediacy, reach, and sometimes actual income.

Many academics are turning to Substack not just to share ideas, but to escape the bureaucracy and glacial pace of peer review. They’re building reputations beyond tenure committees and citation indexes. Some use it to workshop ideas that later become books or lectures. Others are finding that the public intellectual label—once doled out by newspapers or academic presses—can now be self-bestowed, and self-funded.

This raises a delicate question: Will Substack-style publishing ever count toward academic metrics? Probably not anytime soon. But its cultural influence may begin to overshadow traditional academic work, especially if scholars can reach 20,000 readers on Substack and only 200 through a paywalled journal.

In fields like sociology, political theory, or even climate science, some academics have become household names not through scholarly publishing but through smart, accessible newsletter writing. This is both a warning and an opportunity for universities: the real influence game may be moving off campus.

The Risks of Platform Dependence

Substack gives, but it also takes. The platform controls distribution. If it changes its terms of service, or collapses, creators could be left stranded. Sound familiar? Ask anyone who built a media career on Facebook or Medium.

There’s also the issue of discoverability. Substack doesn’t function like YouTube or TikTok. There’s no powerful recommendation engine. If you don’t already have an audience—or a Twitter following—it’s hard to grow one from scratch.

To its credit, Substack has started addressing this with tools like the “Recommendations” feature, allowing writers to cross-promote each other. But the network effects are still weak. The average Substacker is still heavily dependent on external platforms like X, LinkedIn, or YouTube to drive traffic.

And let’s not forget content moderation. Substack has taken a largely hands-off approach, in the name of free speech. But that can make the platform a haven for bad actors and misinformation. It’s a difficult balance, and one that may come to define Substack’s long-term reputation.

The real question is: can Substack remain a neutral host while scaling its ambitions? Or will it, like all platforms, eventually face the hard limits of growth and regulation?

Who Really Wins?

Substack is often framed as a tool for the individual creator. And it is. But it’s also a venture-backed company with its own ambitions. In 2021, Substack raised $65 million in Series B funding, valuing the company at $650 million. That’s not a writer’s collective. That’s Silicon Valley thinking big.

Substack’s long game likely includes becoming a full-stack media company: newsletters, podcasts, video, community, perhaps even events. And if that happens, it will wield enormous influence—not just over content, but over taste, culture, and political discourse.

It already has some of that influence. A controversial essay on Substack can ripple into legacy media within hours. A well-reported post can change public perception faster than a peer-reviewed study. Substack isn’t just reflecting culture—it’s shaping it.

This brings us back to the tension at the heart of the platform: Substack empowers writers, but it’s still a platform. And platforms, eventually, want power.

Publishing’s New Middle Class

One of the most promising aspects of Substack is the rise of a new creative middle class. These aren’t the media elite making millions, nor the aspiring writers working for exposure. They’re professionals building sustainable microbusinesses through content. Think therapists writing about mental health, historians explaining the news, or engineers breaking down tech trends.

This middle class doesn’t need millions of views. They need loyal audiences and a bit of patience. And they’re finding both on Substack. The platform gives them tools, but more importantly, it gives them a runway.

Many of them are blending formats—newsletters with podcasts, paid posts with public essays, longform with community threads. They’re building real ecosystems, not just broadcasts. And for many, it’s not about going viral. It’s about going deep.

In an era where the publishing industry increasingly resembles a winner-takes-all model, Substack offers something rarer: a way to make a living without being famous. That’s more radical than it sounds.

Why This All Matters

Substack isn’t perfect. It’s not a utopia. But it’s doing something radical: putting publishing power directly into the hands of creators and asking readers to fund them directly. That model reconfigures everything we thought we knew about media economics, authority, and influence.

It strips away the assumptions that publishing must be centralized, hierarchical, or beholden to advertisers. It raises new questions about gatekeeping, trust, and sustainability. And it reminds us that good writing still matters—maybe more than ever.

As the platform continues to grow and evolve, its impact will ripple far beyond email inboxes. Substack is not just changing publishing. It’s changing how we value content, how we support ideas, and how we define authorship in the digital age.

The next disruption may not come from another platform. It might come from one of these creators, with a loyal base, an unconventional voice, and no need to ask for permission.

Conclusion

So, how is Substack changing publishing? By breaking it apart and rebuilding it around individual voices. By replacing scale with intimacy. By turning readers into patrons. And by reminding us that audiences crave authenticity more than polish.

Will it replace traditional publishing? Probably not. But it doesn’t have to. What matters is that it offers a viable alternative, and alternatives create pressure. Pressure to pay writers fairly. Pressure to value depth over clickbait. Pressure to treat content as a relationship, not a commodity.

That’s why Substack matters. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s pushing the rest of publishing to rethink everything. And in a stagnating industry, that’s a pretty powerful thing.

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