Why I think Substack will fail.
It's currently in a really awkward position
Welcome to Pull Up a Chair
I was planning on publishing this article at the end of the week after an initial post about this newsletter. I also wanted to have time to review it, but following news that substack just had a private round of fundraising (thanks
), it seemed really relevant right now, so pardon any hasty editing mistakes.Substack’s growth and positioning
Substack might be the future of fashion marketing (via an interview of Meg Strachan by
), but I believe it will fail as a social media platform. It is an exponentially growing platform, however, it fails on one key aspect: its age demographic. While a lot of purists may gripe at me for saying this, the issue blocking the road to Substack becoming a true mainstay of social media is that the majority of users now, towards its start, seems to be 25 & above (unsure as to how reliable this data is, but based off my own anecdotal experience, this seems relatively accurate.)Here is my breakdown:
28-34 year olds are the most represented group.
They are followed by 35-44 year olds, which, along with 45-54, and 55-64 year olds represent about 16-17% of users each.
18-24 year olds are the second least represented age group on the app, making up a meager 12.54% of the user base.
I might be wrong in this analysis, and I hope that is the case, because I love this app, but historical precedent is against it. Facebook started off and grew so fast because it was cool amongst college students (18-24 year olds), as is the whole point in The Social Network.
Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg being fawned upon on in The Social Network
Looking at demographics for all other major social media platforms:
Snapchat is the only major social media platform where the majority of users fall into the 18-24 age range
Tiktok’s main audience (by age) is, like substack, 25-34 year olds
Almost tied with the 25-34 age, is the 18-24 range, which is the second largest audience age group
The same pattern of the 25-34 group being followed by 18-24 year olds in second position is true for:
My takeaway is this: Substack is on the wrong side of the curve.
What the curve looks like for most major social media (here, Facebook)
My 10sec rendering of Substack’s curve
substack’s main demographic seems to be well north of 34 years old.
However, substack is different from traditional media…
the app’s success does depend on paid subscribers. This might be a key thing to consider, maybe substack will still become a mainstay of social media in a disruptive fashion because its main age group is different from that of other major platforms. It might survive and make its mark as a form of social media almost exempt from Gen Z and, down the road (maybe even now, though it’s not shown in statistics), of Gen Alpha. My question then is that of the longevity of the app. How long will it last if it alienates the influx of new social media users?
Another point I would like to emphasise is that, while older demographics might seem, logically, more willing to pay for subscriptions to newsletters, this is a flawed growth strategy.
It would equate to a glaring disconnect, already, with online trends. I say this as it would overlook a major aspect of Gen Z’s social media usage. A lot of Gen Z is obsessed with being productive, or at least a corner of the internet is. Thus we have seen the rise of entrepreneur content, what I do in a day content, side hustle content, etc…
in this context, how can substack place itself in the current ‘social media war’?
The positive takeaway from this for substack however, is that we (Gen Z) yearn, but struggle to break free from doomscrolling in order to replace it with productivity. Were it marketed correctly, substack would be able to win over a huge demographic, looking to satiate its online short-form content addiction with free and paid subscriptions to informative newsletters that they believe will benefit them and falls under ‘being productive’. Since Gen Z is obsessed with being rich, it’s conversion to substack should follow a straightforward path. Marketing it as a useful tool to your ambitions and to gain insider information in the fields you are passionate about would capture this key demographic.
Talking to friends in college and high school, both on substack and not, a clear response emerged: the only reason they would pay money to follow a substack, is if they believe the information contained/the value of the entertainment it provides is superior to how much they are paying. It is a transactional mindset more than an ‘I hope to support an author with their craft’ mindset.
I believe substack is therefore in a very interesting position as a social media platform right now. It has not yet won over the main demographic that uses social media, but has not yet either been dubbed as ‘old’ or ‘irrelevant’. I look forward to seeing how its perception will evolve within my age group, and what marketing direction the company will take.
This is just my take as a substack user, please let me know what your opinion on it is, I’m interested in seeing what people think.
What do you think of this new lists app, not Twitter nor substack. https://www.onditto.com/list