The Rise of the Internet and the Importance of Incentives

Last Thursday, I spoke to Substack CEO Chris Best to get a better understanding of where the company is going. We recorded the interview before Elon Musk threw a temper tantrum over Substack's coming Twitter competitor. Chris and I spoke about a couple of important issues to me: ads and bundling. On ads, Chris explains that Substack is trying to occupy a part of the market on an opposite pole from the attention grabbing part of digital media defined by platforms like Facebook and TikTok. But he allowed that ads could be done in a way that makes sense for the space Substack wants to occupy. On bundling, Substack is opposed to a "subscribe to Substack" option that obviates the direct relationship with individual publishers. Instead, he's more interested in "writer federations" and reader-directed bundles that get the upside of bundle economics but don't tradeoff the direct relationship between the audience and publishers.