Substack's Bestseller Badges
Just a harmless new feature or a shift in Substack's strategy?
I know that some of you just read these words within your inbox and don’t really care how they get there. They could be sent using a variety of email tools (MailChimp, ConvertKit, etc.) or they could be sent using one of the many new publication platforms that toe the line between blog and newsletter (Bulletin, Revue, Ghost).
Background
I’ve been publishing this content on Substack from the start way back in April 2021.
It shouldn’t matter much to you how this writing ends up in your inbox (or you may read it on the Substack site) but I’ve been really happy with Substack for a while. And I’ve been proud to call it my home for writing on the internet.
Although recently it seems that Substack may be shifting its focus and borrowing some tools from the social media giants it always seemed to stand against.
Substack has grown quite a bit since its early days. They’re constantly adding features to make the experience better for both writers and readers. They developed an app! (first iOS then finally on Android) They’ve added some really cool tools like polling (which I use in almost every post and I appreciate all the feedback I get) along with minor edits to the text editor that make it easier for writers to add media. They’ve even made it super easy to upload video and podcasts in a way that traditional email service providers wouldn’t be able to do.
What I’m saying is that Substack has done many things right over the past few years. But today I wanted to write a quick piece on a questionable decision they’ve recently made. They’re calling them “Bestseller Badges” and they’re causing quite a stir amongst Substack writers.
The Badge
What is a Bestseller Badge you might ask? It sounds harmless enough right? Well it’s an indicator that your Substack publication sits atop a leaderboard for paid subscriptions. There are three different color options to indicate just how much of a big deal you are as a Substack writer. It’s a form of currency, social proof that you’re great, a way to quickly see if the Substack publication you’re reading is legitmate.
The badges come in three colors:
Purple: tens of thousands of paid subscribers
Orange: thousands of paid subscribers
White: hundreds of paid subscribers.
This seems like a grave departure from the Substack mission of letting everyone become a writer. It’s signaling that those who have thousands of paid subscribers are better than those who have hundreds or even no paid subscribers at all. When this was announced on Substack’s own publication, it was obviously met with confusion and disgust. At the time of writing, there were nearly 500 comments left on the post and a vast majority were negative.
The timing is particularly odd with all of the bad publicity facing Twitter right now. Why would a company want to offer a new feature that appears to be very similar to the Twitter verified Blue Check? Why not go with some other icon? The check just seems to carry some excess baggage due to the way Twitter used it.
Conclusion
I would bet that Substack removes (or changes) this feature soon based on all the negative feedback. It may not seem like a huge deal to add a feature like this, but it can easily be seen as a shift in philosophy for the brand. While paid subscribers are great, a majority of the writers on Substack don’t make any money at all. Or maybe they have other means of generating revenue from their writing beyond the subscription model. This just seems like the first of many features that will make Substack feel more like a social media platform and less like a tool for writers.
I appreciate you reading my little Iter-rant. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week.
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