| >Guess I need to migrate my entire blog to Substack so that I can have a concept of "subscribers" and the necessary analytics to give me a dopamine rush any time the number gets bigger. I get what your sarcasm is about but a friendly FYI if you didn't know... the purpose of Substack is writing for subscribers. Building subscribers (and hopefully paying subscribers) is why the founder of Substack created it. (My previous comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31083741) Stratechery's writer Ben Thompson quit his 6-figure job at Microsoft and was able to make millions per year by writing for an audience of email newsletter subscribers. That's the type of financial success that many writers using the Substack platform are trying to replicate. (https://www.google.com/search?q=Stratechery+writer+subscribe...) You're not "doing it wrong" because you're not the intended user of Substack. An analogy would be me saying "I guess I'm playing music wrong because I just sat around the campfire with my guitar and sang "99 Bottles Of Beers On The Wall". I guess I need to put my songs on Spotify to get a rush from watching the # listener streams go up." My mockery of the musicians on Spotify by me playing dumb about not also not putting my music on it -- is irrelevant to those artists on that platform trying to make money. The author of this thread's article is also trying to monetize his writing. He admitted he's not there yet so wanted to "blow off some steam" -- via some satire -- about the endless advice to "work harder" to grow his audience. His satirical piece doesn't change the fact that he still wants to grow his Substack audience to some success like Ben Thompson. If people don't know what the Substack platform is actually about, then I can see where it looks like the writers are just there for unhealthy vanity gazing. |