Substack Has Joined the Paywallers
I wrote a Substack post on subscriptions as paywalls back in February. Over the years I have benefited greatly from Substack posts, but I am frankly becoming really disappointed in the changes I am have seen in Substack over the past few months.
One recent substack PR email extolled how much money Substack podcasters were making and Substacks new podcast features would enable writers to podcast like the pros. Another recent Substack newsletter tells me how Substack writers are making so much money on their subscriptions that Substack has now developed more options to make writer Substack sites look more like a website. That way writers can gussy up their Substack page to look like a web site and let their web sites go, using Substack for everything webby.
Whoa.
A blog is a blog. I have a website for my webby information. I want a place to simply post my essays where readers can see my content for free, with the option of subscribing for free and if they feel inclined, to support my work.
But Substack did ask for feedback on these wonderful new features.
So here’s my feedback.
I am seeing Substack become more and more like a paywalled content platform and less and less like a blog platform. And as Substack becomes more and more enhanced, it becomes less and less usable, at least for me.
On Substack, I recently discovered I can no longer read for free some of the blog posts from authors I have followed free for months. I am seeing more and more of my free subscriptions blocked with the free post notice below. When I open an email telling me about a new post by one of the writers I have had a free subscription for months, I may now see only an excerpt from the post and the following button.
When I click on this button, I am taken to the following page:
What’s behind Substack’s determination to force subscribers to use the Substack app? I don’t want the Substack app. For me, it serves no purpose because I only use my iPhone for calls and texts. But here I am being forced to download something I don’t want in order to read a blog post I have been reading for free for months.
I tried downloading the app to get rid of this popup. The app wouldn’t download to my iPhone from the QR image. So I went ahead and clicked the X to close the window. This took me back to where I started.
When I first saw this sequence of buttons fail to take me to the free read, I honestly thought Substack wasn’t working. Wouldn’t you? There had been no loud brandishment of this new feature in my Substack PR email.
I noticed some of my free subscriptions were still free and available, but I was seeing more and more of my free subscriptions appearing as excerpts with this prompt to read the post for free which didn’t work.
So I contacted Substack support to ask why it appeared the free post button wasn’t working. The Substack response:
The "claim my free post" button can only be used to claim one free post, and only if you're eligible. To be eligible, the reader must be a free subscriber who doesn’t have the Substack app installed and must have never unlocked a paid post.
I hope this clears things up. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.
Well, I didn’t think that cleared up much for me. Why wasn’t I advised that I had only one free read? And was this one free read period per a given time frame or was it one free read into perpetuity? Paywallers usually add a note that you have used 6 of your 10 free accesses to articles when you click on a paywalled site that allows a few free views. So I asked for further explanation and got the following response:
Yes, that's correct, re: one free post total. Thank you for the feedback around this feature.
It's outlined here: https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/24345969253524-What-is-a-teaser-post-on-Substack\
Re: "Only eligible readers will see the teaser post paywall and be able to unlock the paid content. To be eligible, the reader must be a free subscriber who doesn’t have the Substack app installed and must have never unlocked a paid post."
I hope this clears things up. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.
The link provided in this second support answer calls this paywall a teaser post. This Substack link actually admits these teasers are paywalls. Substack admits forcing the reader to download the Substack app to access the free post. I can only ask why the app is so important to Substack that users must download it to read a post for free—one post, as near as I can tell. Not one post per subscription, but one post, period.
Now I am finding more and more of the Substack blogs I have read for free are now locked up in what Substack mislabels the paywall a “teaser” post. A free post I can only access once, meaning any other of my free subscriptions with this teaser tail are inaccessible.
In other words, the free subscription to posts are no longer free if the writer chooses to embed this “teaser” in the post. Since I was suddenly being blocked from many of my free subscriptions, I wondered if the writers of the posts understood what this teaser feature was doing to their free subscribers. I suspect they do not realize that this teaser business basically prevents their free subscribers from reading their posts or anyone else’s who is using this Substack paywall mislabeled a teaser.
Substack has now crossed the line and joined the Wolters Kluwers of the world. As I noted in my previous post:
We talk and write about transparency. I haven’t much confidence that the professional journals of the world will let go of their research studies for free since transparency has never been their concern. However, I think it is time for newspapers and bloggers to practice what they preach.
My concern is that Substack writers understand what the Substack misnomer “teaser” is doing to their free subscribers when I can no longer read free subscriptions with this paywall embedded in their Substack posts. It saddens me to see Substack’s developers take a really nice blogger app and become so enamored of all their wonderful new features that they appear to lose track of their original purpose.
As I said in the earlier post, I have no problem with writers providing supplemental content—such as these supposedly highly lucrative podcasts—and making this special content available only to subscribers. But reading a blog post, I believe, should be free. This is the basis of the highly touted transparency we find discussed in blogs and newspapers.
RuralDocAlan posts are always free. Paid subscribers are much appreciated, but I would never consider preventing readers from seeing my posts without their paying to read them.
My humble advice to Substack developers?
Wake up!
The road Substack is travelling appears to diverge from what was a fine blogging app with every much-touted enhancement.
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I came here and subscribed because of your comments on substack founder's post about paying to read. I couldn't agree more and did not know substack was this buttoned down.....i'd go broke -exaggerating but you get the picture-reading all these blogs, some of which requires a HUGE amoutn of my time to read strangers words. I come from the magazine /newspaper world and at least when a reader purchased a newspaper or magazine, their writers have been vetted by the editors. Who's vetting all these writers' words/opinions/facts presented as facts?
The posts are essentially blogs, so unlike newspapers, there is no vetting. However, many of the people writing for Substack are well-known in their fields. I subscribe because I have read their writings in other places. And as you note, if you follow many physicians, as I do (my husband is a physician, RuralDocAlan on Substack), you would go bankrupt.
One of my big concerns is that the public does not have access to the research studies reported in newspapers or medical journals, although reporters are sent PR about the studies. So the public has no way of assessing the bias in research studies, or even the outright errors in the studies. Many of the physician writers on substack explain the studies reported on in newspapers, which is why I consider their posts so valuable. Any why I consider paywalling analyses of research studies is a travesty.