Substack

Substack is an American online system that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design facilities to support membership e-newsletters. It allows authors to send out electronic e-newsletters straight to customers. Established in 2017, Substack is locateded in San Francisco, California.

Substack was established in 2017 by Chris Best, the founder of Kik Messenger; Jairaj Sethi, a developer; and Hamish McKenzie, a previous PandoDaily technology press reporter. Best and McKenzie explain Ben Thompson’s Stratechery, a subscription-based technology and media e-newsletter, as a significant inspiration for their system. Christopher Best runs as chief exec since March 2019.

Substack users range from reporters to experts to large media websites. Amongst the high-profile authors to have used the system are Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter and writer Glenn Greenwald, society critic Anne Helen Petersen, songs essayist Robert Christgau, and food author Alison Roman.

The New York Times columnist Mike Isaac suggested in 2019 that some of these companies see e-newsletters as a more stable means to maintain visitors through a more direct link with authors. In 2020, The New Republic said there was an lack of local information e-newsletters, particularly as opposed to the a great deal of national-level political e-newsletters.

Since late 2020, great deals of reporters and reporters were coming to the system, owned partially by the long-lasting decrease in traditional media (there were fifty percent as many newsroom jobs in 2019 as in 2004). About that time, The New Yorker said that while “Substack has advertised itself as a pleasant home for journalism, […] couple of of its e-newsletters release initial reporting; the bulk offer individual writing, opinion items, research, and evaluation.”

It explained Substack’s content small amounts plan as “light-weight,” with rules versus “harassment, risks, spam, porn, and phone telephone calls for violence; small amounts choices are made by the founders.”