This reminds me of one of the permanent and interesting (and challenging) dynamics of the business, a bit tangentially maybe. It often comes down to a particular decision that has a slightly technical distinction: explore vs. exploit.

Products like Substack can nudge (or push, or shove) users onto surfaces where they see lots of stuff, lots of things they might be interested in. When we do that, we try to guess what they’re interested in so they’re (1) likelier to find something they like and subscribe and (2) likelier to keep coming to this surface to discover good things to subscribe to.

It’s obvious that there’s an issue here: if we were to only show what we know you’re interested in, you’d never see anything new or different. (This is setting aside that neither Substack nor Facebook nor TikTok nor the NSA knows you nearly as well as people like to think; these people cannot predict what their own spouses and children will do, let alone what millions of strangers will).

So products try to balance these two modes:

• explore, where they show you stuff they’re not sure you’ll like / don’t know your attitude about; and

• exploit, where they show you stuff they’re pretty sure you’ll like

Almost all producers want platforms to do a ton of exploration: show readers lots of options! Show them lots of stuff! Show them my stuff, even if they’ve never read anything like it; they might love it! (And they might; this happens daily).

But almost all consumers —regardless of what they say— punish exploration. You’ve had this experience yourself, almost certainly: sitting at the restaurant you visited for a burger, the waiter makes you listen to the specials, even though you know you don’t want them, for example; or loading YouTube and seeing a ton of videos you wouldn’t watch in a million years; or whatever.

In other words: unsuccessful exploration alienates consumers! Then they come back less, and discover less, etc. So balancing explore and exploit modes is a tricky and vital thing. I always think of it like: you have to earn your right to take users exploring by nailing the rest of the experience. I think TikTok does a phenomenal job of this, by the way; no one does more exploration without costing consumers much.

To return to your point: big writers / popular pubs —the “head” of the distribution— will often outperform, but will create a lack of exploration / dynamism; smaller writers —“the long tail”— will “underperform,” but if we don’t push them, over time the whole system will suck, plus: we just want Substack to work for the long tail; most of us who work here love the long tail most of all.

So I think our order is like:

1. Grow, a lot, by being a place readers love to come to often;

2. Get good at exploration, through new and existing surfaces and better ranking and other investments;

3. Get great at “exploitation” (dark term!), showing people things they love to see and read and subscribe to.

If we do this decently, it’ll slosh huge volumes across all writers: large, small, and in-between. As a purely “business” matter —for anyone who suspects of being cynical!— i't’s not in our interest to have a handful of whales dominate everything, so even at that level we’re inventivized to get better at this!