Substack is the new poster child. A prominent VC firm funded it which is betting the “stack” on a future “media business”. Th

The crisis of blogs and rise of newsletters.

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2021-06-07 02:30:05

Substack is the new poster child. A prominent VC firm funded it which is betting the “stack” on a future “media business”.

The premise is simple. Offer a subpar content management system (CMS), a billing system (integration with payment processor Stripe) and a mailing list. Any business wants the relationship with customers and the billing system. However, Substack plants itself as the middleman. That’s where it takes the cut.

I did have a look at the system and was disappointed because it offered no fresh take on the existing system. A WordPress blog (or it’s hosting) is infinitely superior. I had a look at the other CMS’s (like Ghost) and Medium, and realised that a platform which allows for seamless migration makes perfect sense.

While there is an uptick of the blogs from some academics who provide insights in their niche ecosystems, I find that the general purpose blogs are fading away. Google bought blogspot to encourage (and market) blogs, and then left it to squander it – like they did to Google Reader, it has done more harm than good. Twitter (and other social media companies) hit the final nail in the coffin.