Hi Michael, Casey Newton left Substack for Ghost. One Medium writer and pub owner now is also using Ghost. Think it's an alternative but doesn't have a built-in audience. That's the cool thing about Substack. You have 5M paid subscriptions and most of these people are also using Notes as Substack is pushing the app.
Hi Michael, Casey Newton left Substack for Ghost. One Medium writer and pub owner now is also using Ghost. Think it's an alternative but doesn't have a built-in audience. That's the cool thing about Substack. You have 5M paid subscriptions and most of these people are also using Notes as Substack is pushing the app.
So no matter what you're writing about readers are here just waiting for to discover your pub.
Think Ghost is nice if you want to "own" everything and create your own beautiful website etc.
All fair points Kristina but this is exactly the reason why I am specifically waiting for version 6 to be released and become available for those who prefer to self-host.
Version 6.0 introduces the ActivityPub integration which is specifically all about discovery and the potential reach is by orders of magnitude larger than what Substack has now or likely will EVER have.
So you'd like to take your pub and move it to Ghost then? Once you know when it will be released tag me on Notes :) No form dates yet. Maybe I could feature Justin Cox who is using Ghost already and in one of our masterclasses highlighted the benefits. If discovery (as top of the funnel) will become better... this will change the game for sure. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Speak soon!
I have looked at Ghost after they reached out to me.
I think, honestly, Substack provides many intangible benefits worth the extra cost. Most obvious being, if you move to something like Ghost, now the discovery of the content is considerably shifted back to the author, versus the platform.
For me... Substack is turnkey. I don't see a lot of reason to move yet.
My article, the podcast, etc., really has one message - stop deluding yourself into thinking the platform won't change.
The message was not "LEAVE! RUN! IT'S IMPLODING!" which is what effectively a lot of people seem to conclude.
Substack probably has about a year, maybe longer, realistically probably longer, until it starts to warp. I would imagine the 100M user mark is when things start to "get real," in terms of scale and money.
There are of course black swans... Trump Admin decides things like Substack are seditious... pow... party's over.
But assuming that doesn't happen... there is considerable runway to build an audience on Substack. I don't see that opportunity in Ghost. I'm not saying it won't become an opportunity... but right now? I don't see open source blah blah blah as advantageous to a turnkey system that is sucking in a massive audience daily, and plopping your ideas into an ecosystem that promotes discovery.
My pleasure. Here is a recent interview with the ghost founder talking specifically about the ActivityPub integration which will unlock access to millions of users, including most people who are on threads as well as any other platform using that protocol like Mastodon, Pixelfed and PeerTube.
Hi Michael, Casey Newton left Substack for Ghost. One Medium writer and pub owner now is also using Ghost. Think it's an alternative but doesn't have a built-in audience. That's the cool thing about Substack. You have 5M paid subscriptions and most of these people are also using Notes as Substack is pushing the app.
So no matter what you're writing about readers are here just waiting for to discover your pub.
Think Ghost is nice if you want to "own" everything and create your own beautiful website etc.
All fair points Kristina but this is exactly the reason why I am specifically waiting for version 6 to be released and become available for those who prefer to self-host.
Version 6.0 introduces the ActivityPub integration which is specifically all about discovery and the potential reach is by orders of magnitude larger than what Substack has now or likely will EVER have.
https://activitypub.ghost.org/gone-surfing/
So you'd like to take your pub and move it to Ghost then? Once you know when it will be released tag me on Notes :) No form dates yet. Maybe I could feature Justin Cox who is using Ghost already and in one of our masterclasses highlighted the benefits. If discovery (as top of the funnel) will become better... this will change the game for sure. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Speak soon!
I have looked at Ghost after they reached out to me.
I think, honestly, Substack provides many intangible benefits worth the extra cost. Most obvious being, if you move to something like Ghost, now the discovery of the content is considerably shifted back to the author, versus the platform.
For me... Substack is turnkey. I don't see a lot of reason to move yet.
My article, the podcast, etc., really has one message - stop deluding yourself into thinking the platform won't change.
The message was not "LEAVE! RUN! IT'S IMPLODING!" which is what effectively a lot of people seem to conclude.
Substack probably has about a year, maybe longer, realistically probably longer, until it starts to warp. I would imagine the 100M user mark is when things start to "get real," in terms of scale and money.
There are of course black swans... Trump Admin decides things like Substack are seditious... pow... party's over.
But assuming that doesn't happen... there is considerable runway to build an audience on Substack. I don't see that opportunity in Ghost. I'm not saying it won't become an opportunity... but right now? I don't see open source blah blah blah as advantageous to a turnkey system that is sucking in a massive audience daily, and plopping your ideas into an ecosystem that promotes discovery.
But what do I know? :D
My pleasure. Here is a recent interview with the ghost founder talking specifically about the ActivityPub integration which will unlock access to millions of users, including most people who are on threads as well as any other platform using that protocol like Mastodon, Pixelfed and PeerTube.
https://youtu.be/0vMkriMl-ic