How Do You Consume Substacks?
A poll - please share
Bill Rice wrote a substack post1 where noted that the “open” rate for his posts has declined substantially recently and he feared that it was due to some kind of shadow banning. Josh Slocum and John Carter had a recent notes convo about the smartphones and the substack app (my response2) where they were critical of the new features being included in the substack app and related web pages.
Personally as I commented on Bill’s post, I use the web page (https://substack.com/inbox ) as my primary access to all substacks. I use the app second because it’s on a phone and there are times of the day when I am waiting and have access to the phone so I read a substack post or two. What this means is that I, personally, never open the emails. In fact I’d like to not get them because they just clutter up my inbox.
I strongly suspect I am not alone in this.
In addition I note that a lot of my readers come from websites (mostly instapundit.com thanks to me having friends there) but I also see a ton of “direct link” which I suspect means there is something else that opening the links but I’m not sure what.
Hence the poll below.
Share & Answer please. Also feel free to leave a comment below to give more details if the answer is one of the last two.
[Update: I see that you have to be a subscriber to vote which is another reason to subscribe …]
PS please stroke my ego by subscribing too
I don't use the app at all. Even on my phone, I use the website. I'm probably about 50/50 email and website, whether on phone or computer.
I read through from emails if the headline is interesting. I tend to read through the desktop interface when I am killing time. I read notes on the app on my phone. So... all of the above?