Q&A with Substack CEO Chris Best on why it is not a media company, content moderation, making a reader app for users to easily read their newsletters, and more
On today's episode of Decoder, I'm talking to Chris Best, co-founder and CEO of Substack, the subscription newsletter startup that's taken …
The VergeNilay Patel
Context & Ripple Effects
Chris Best's insistence that Substack is a platform rather than a media company is a well-worn refrain by this interview — the founders made the same case weeks earlier in a CJR profile arguing that opt-in newsletters need less moderation. What has changed since mid-year is scale: Substack reported revenue up 60% with readership and writership doubling in the first three months of the pandemic, which makes every 'we're just a platform' answer carry more weight.
The new element in this conversation is the reader app — software that would put newsletters in a shared Substack-controlled surface rather than arriving purely by email, a step that sits awkwardly next to the hands-off moderation posture.
First-order effects
Best is publicly committing to a model where moderation responsibility rests with individual writers and their paying readers, not with a central editorial team — the direct answer to how Substack handles problematic content at its new scale.
The trend: Subscription platforms built on disclaiming editorial responsibility tend to acquire distribution surfaces that force moderation decisions back onto them anyway.
Everything old is new again. Email newsletters are just community-driven blogs with a specific distribution model, meaning platforms need better ways to deliver reliable reach for their creators. https://www.theverge.com/... via @Verge
1/ This Substack CEO interview: https://www.theverge.com/... raises issues I have written about: Direct distribution https://25iq.com/... Wholesale transfer pricing: https://25iq.com/... Bundling and unbundling https://25iq.com/... Value chains: https://25iq.com/...
One of the things I admire about the Substack business model: “If you're a writer and you build up your following and your subscriber base on Substack, you can take it away. Which in turn means that we have to provide value for you to stay” https://www.theverge.com/...
Substack feels like basically a record label or book publisher — company takes a risk supporting new artists/authors, gets a cut of the proceeds, hopes one out of 10 becomes something big, provides back-office type support etc. https://www.theverge.com/...
Substack is a new model for journalism. They haven't figured out everything yet but they seem to have figured out the most important thing - how to make it sustainable @SubstackInc https://www.theverge.com/...
substack already sees my enterprise as a potential competitor and so investors should hurry to join today's series A in order to capitalize on these synergies https://www.theverge.com/...
all i want is an e-ink tablet with no interface outside of an infinite feed of newsletters i've signed up for. no alerts, no highlighting, just a constantly updating feed of words. https://twitter.com/...
.@verge says Substack is building an app for its newsletters. I have some questions: - Do readers want this though? - If yes, would they pay for it? - Can it integrate with other newsletters offplatform, a la Google Reader? https://www.theverge.com/...
.@reckless very graciously asked Substack CEO Chris Best for me about when Substack will institute drop caps — and let me tell you about the emotional rollercoaster I went on. Fantastic, full interview -> https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...