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by arthurofbabylon 1555 days ago
By "read in their email client" (presumably on mobile) I will assume that people view but do not read. Attention spans on mobile are atrocious (notably, the fulcrum is screen size having a neurological impact on ability to pay attention - this is a biological fact) – very little real reading takes place.

I can imagine Substack is more of an "aspires to read X" platform than a place for actually reading X. This argument is anecdotally supported by the sensationalism of popular pieces I see go viral, the payment system (it is always easier to quickly monetize aspiration than behavior), and its reliance on growth through virtue-signaling (eg twitter).
5 comments
kevincox 1554 days ago
This is a huge assumption. I do almost all of my reading in my email client (mostly RSS to email that gets sorted into a Reading folder). Whenever I have some downtime I slowly read through the articles that have accumulated. I have no problem finishing long articles or anything else.
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secondo 1554 days ago
> Attention spans on mobile are atrocious (notably, the fulcrum is screen size having a neurological impact on ability to pay attention - this is a biological fact) – very little real reading takes place.

If you have any further reading on this please share.

n=1 with exception for scientific papers I do essentially all my reading on my phone and I do not experience any attention difference. I also have my phone on perpetual DnD so notifications and other distractions are not a thing.

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edmundsauto 1555 days ago
Not affiliated with Substack, but this doesn’t feel like a fair assessment. For me, email is the best way to consume curated content that I don’t get distracted. Often, like with Matt Levine, it’s a way around a paywall and obnoxious sites.
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hackernewds 1554 days ago
> " aspires to read X platform then a place for actually reading X "

This assumes this is goal for Substack founders and leadership. The null hypothesis absence of other evidence, is that the goal is active reader/subscriber growth

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native_samples 1554 days ago
If it was aspirational reading people wouldn't pay so much for it.
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