>the web site is usually the superior way to see the content
Which is irrelevant, Substack was marketed and promoted itself as a newsletter focused service, not as "yet another blogging platform with social media aspirations".
Authors were promised to have control of their audience, to even take elsewhere if they wanted to move, as they'd be just email addresses subscribed to them.
Everything they've done since (in the last 1-2 years) is to move away from that into a tightly centralized social media platform.
>Substack doesn't charge more or less to users who choose to get emailed or not.
It makes subscribing optional if you want to follow someone (whereas before it was the only way), which means less newsletter subscribers, which means authors don't get to have their audience: Substack keeps the control. This also means less paid subscribers, even if nominally they can still go out of their way to subscribe and then get a paid tier.
Which is irrelevant, Substack was marketed and promoted itself as a newsletter focused service, not as "yet another blogging platform with social media aspirations".
Authors were promised to have control of their audience, to even take elsewhere if they wanted to move, as they'd be just email addresses subscribed to them.
Everything they've done since (in the last 1-2 years) is to move away from that into a tightly centralized social media platform.
>Substack doesn't charge more or less to users who choose to get emailed or not.
It makes subscribing optional if you want to follow someone (whereas before it was the only way), which means less newsletter subscribers, which means authors don't get to have their audience: Substack keeps the control. This also means less paid subscribers, even if nominally they can still go out of their way to subscribe and then get a paid tier.