[jp57]

Substack in particular seems to have pulled a bait-and-switch in terms of strategy. Their original line was "Each newsletter is a separate publisher and separate business and we're just a platform. You can take your list and leave at any time." But in the last months they've been rolling out feature after feature designed to bind publishers and readers tightly to Substack as a brand: A reader app, app-only chat, checkmark-badges for high-sellers, semi-mysterious (algorithmic?) promotion features for driving subscriptions, etc.

At this point it seems like actual email newsletters are kind of a nuisance to them, and they're trying to be more Medium than Medium.