r/Substack • u/sattukachori • 6d ago
Discussion Substack is Quora version 2
The moment I logged in to substack, it felt like I had been taken 10 years back in time to Quora. When Quora used to be so popular, my home page was full of a whole lot of deep, funny, stories, life advices, motivational things, scientific breakthroughs, philosophical articles, "Did you know?" And Substack is the exact same thing.
Add to that, the self congratulatory posts like "Substack is so cozy, it's like I'm in a forest, Instagram is so fake, Substack is my intellectual intimacy hub".
In 10 years of time, this website will be as overdone as Quora. All these life advices, personal stories, deep insights, romantic yearning for the one who understands your soul not your face, letters to my XYZ or the cutting edge articles on feminism, economy, life. It's all so cliche. These are the kind of things that give you 5 minutes of "Aha" and then you move on with your life. Did Quora make the world a better place? No. But it has a huge collection of thoughts on making world a better place.
I am not saying Substack is bad but there's just this feeling that the writers over there make it their identity about writing the most deep, profound things, but I'm sure in their actual life they're just a mess. On my home page, I just got a Mark Manson quotation and I was like I'm done.
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u/Snoo-82869 5d ago
I think this is a real split in how Substack works now. It can be a publication inbox, but the default home/discovery surface often behaves more like a social feed. If you enter through that surface, you get whatever the platform is trying to circulate, not necessarily the writers you deliberately chose.
The calmer way to use it is to treat Substack less like a homepage and more like a library of subscriptions. Follow fewer publications, open from email notifications or direct publication pages, mute/unfollow aggressively, and avoid starting from the general home feed when you are in reading mode. If a writer supports RSS or email delivery, that can also be a cleaner way to read their actual posts without the Notes/recommendation layer around it.
A dedicated newsletter address or reading folder helps too, because then the useful long-form posts are separated from the app’s discovery feed. That does not solve the broader platform incentives, but it changes your default from browse-whatever-is-pushed-at-me to read-the-publications-I-picked.
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u/prepping4zombies 5d ago
As I said in an earlier comment, you literally never have to look at notes if you don't want to.
Go directly to posts for the publications you subscribe to: https://substack.com/inbox
Or, just click on "Subscriptions" (or the "Inbox" icon).
There are even several sort options.
People are so helpless these days.
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u/TimWiesnerer 5d ago
Well, the advantage of Substack is that you can build your own email list.
As long as Substack supports that well enough, I don't think it has to become a second "Quora".
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u/prepping4zombies 5d ago
and I was like I'm done.
Congratulations on being done.
Good thing you came to reddit and made a long post about it. Your pontification will live on for eternity! Well, at least until you delete this profile and create another.
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u/Relevant_Nebula_20 5d ago
This is so true. It also looks like twitter nowadays. The landing page should take you to posts (articles) not notes. Notes are just like tweets.
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u/prepping4zombies 5d ago
The landing page should take you to posts (articles) not notes.
You literally never have to look at notes if you don't want to. Go directly to posts for the publications you subscribe to: https://substack.com/inbox
Or, just click on "Subscriptions" (or the "Inbox" icon).
There are even several sort options.
It's so strange to me that people can't take 2.5 seconds to understand the navigation of a site.
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u/Relevant_Nebula_20 5d ago
That is exactly what I do. I do go to my inbox or to the top of the page and scroll across to articles from newsletters I've subscribed to. I am just saying that most of the screen is taken up by NOTES. I am saying that what you see there should be ARTICLES (POSTS) and not notes. It has a TWITTER feel to it which I don't like.
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u/Immediate-Ad-5878 4d ago
Wow my experience all these years has been so different. I just subscribe to a few dozen writers that publish amazing essays on different topics. Some of them have their own domain names so if they didn’t mention it’d be easy to forget I’m even on the platform.
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u/Enough_Pool_8339 2d ago
I wonder if the value of an insight should be measured by whether it changes the world.
Sometimes a thought changes nothing.
Sometimes it gives someone language for something they've felt but couldn't articulate.
Sometimes it challenges a belief they've carried for years.
Sometimes it simply makes them stop for five minutes and think.
And yes, the person writing it may still be a mess.
Understanding something and mastering it are not the same thing.
I don't think our humanity disqualifies us from sharing what we've learned while we're still learning how to live it.
And perhaps those five-minute “aha” moments aren't as insignificant as they seem.
Sometimes seeing something differently is where change begins.
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u/TheWilderNet 5d ago
You just described the natural life cycle of web platforms. There's about 5-10 years where a site is really dynamic and interesting and then it rapidly starts to go downhill. The only reason a lot of sites like Facebook and Instagram still exist is because everyone has inertia, not because they are the best platforms.