I can confirm what other Substack writers have reported—the launch of Notes has accelerated subscriber growth. I’ve gotten a noticeable boost, and other writers here have enjoyed even bigger gains.

This is more validation that the platform grows by creating a community (or a group of overlapping communities). This not only benefits all participants, writers and readers, but also sharply differentiates our work from most other legacy media outlets—where the stratified, hierarchical approach and (let’s be honest) poor comment quality make community building almost impossible.

We have a genuine chance to do something different here. Maybe it has already started.

Many steps have contributed to this—including the ‘Recommendation’ function and the capability to cross-post articles. But Notes may be the biggest step forward yet.