I see lots of creators who continue whining that Substack has rolled out a “follow” button in addition to its “subscribe” button.

There are lots of creators that I’m fine with following on social media but don’t necessarily want to have their newsletters clogging my inbox. The fact that it’s the year 2024 and so many people here don’t understand that dynamic really makes me wonder what universe they’re living in. Every single one of these people have accounts on other social media sites that only allow follows, yet they act like there’s absolutely zero value to having followers on Substack.

Think of the “follow” button as being the very tippy top of the marketing funnel and the “subscribe” button as being in the middle of the funnel. The job is to get people into the top of the funnel and then filter them down into the middle and then finally convert them into paid subscribers. Each stage of the funnel has value!