Substack rolls out Notes, its Twitter-like service, to all users; writers have used Notes in beta to talk with their readers, promote newsletters, and network
Washington PostTaylor Lorenz
Context & Ripple Effects
Notes extends Substack beyond newsletter publishing into a short-form discovery and conversation layer. The feature was introduced days earlier as a feed for posts, quotes, images, and links, framed as resembling familiar social feeds: the initial Notes feature rollout.
It builds on Substack's earlier effort to let one publication organize multiple newsletters or podcasts through Sections, giving writers more tools to operate a broader publication presence from one service.
First-order effects
Writers can use Notes immediately to converse with readers, promote newsletters, and connect with other writers without relying solely on email distribution.
Substack gains an in-product feed that can surface writing and writer activity between newsletter sends, making the service more directly comparable with Twitter for public conversation.
Second-order effects
Newsletter promotion and writer discovery can move further inside Substack, reducing the need for writers to send every audience-building interaction to an external social network.
The later ability to follow a writer without subscribing is consistent with Notes creating a lighter-weight audience relationship before an email subscription.
Third-order effects
If readers and writers adopt the feed, newsletter platforms may increasingly compete as social-discovery products as well as publishing and subscription tools.
That shift would make feed ranking, moderation, and creator discovery more central platform responsibilities, rather than peripheral features around email publishing.
The trend: Creator publishing platforms are adding social layers to own more of the discovery, audience-building, and engagement cycle around subscriptions.
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We hope Notes will come to be a major driver of subscription revenue for writers, but this is a long-term project. There will be many bumps and imperfections. We'll keep improving the product in response to feedback and learning how Notes is used at scale.
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