Issue #224 All About Email

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #224 of All About Email!

Last week, we looked at an announcement from Google and Gmail about changing email addresses and its potential impact on email marketing.

This week, Substack becomes the focus for the very first time in this newsletter after a surprise announcement.

Let’s go! 👇

🤔 “Taking subscriber video to the big screen”… for most Substack users in the comments of the announcement post, it’s a “no thanks!”

To quote one of my favourite comments on the announcement:

💡 …the idea that platforms broaden, chase engagement, and eventually degrade the user experience to monetise.

The comments reveal less a debate about whether video “should exist” and more a trust issue about incentives.

💡 People fear that once Substack optimises for watching, it will inevitably optimise away from writing through the feed, the Product roadmap, Creator Economics, and Culture.

The comment thread suggests many users want explicit guardrails:

🤔 Some commentators ask for evidence that paying subscribers want this, or they reject it outright as a mismatch for a reading platform.

Substack’s TV app announcement sparked an intense comment thread questioning what Substack is and who it’s for.

💡 The dominant camp, writers and writing-centric readers, interprets “Substack TV” as more than a feature. It’s a signal that Substack is moving from a writing-first platform toward a broader creator/influencer model.

The core argument is that Substack originally felt like a refuge from algorithmic, video-heavy social media. Turning it into a “TV” destination risks collapsing that distinction and reintroducing the very incentives users were escaping.

Dustin pleaded, “Please don’t do this. This is not YouTube. Elevate the written word.” Others echo that Substack’s early promise was “a place for writing,” and the TV app feels like dilution in pursuit of scale.

Several commenters frame the TV app as venture-capital logic in product form. David I. Adeleke says it “reminds me of Medium,” while others predict the next steps:

That anxiety ties into a practical worry about power dynamics:

Multiple commenters point out that Substack is shipping a brand-new TV surface while creators still lack basic quality-of-life improvements, with the following requests:

This “fix the basics first” theme suggests the TV app isn’t merely unwanted, it’s seen as proof that Substack is investing in the wrong problems.

“Read-alouds” become a flashpoint because they’re repeatedly raised in Matt Klein's replies, which position them as support for text-based creators.

🤔 Some commenters appreciate the accessibility angle (and the discussion around text-to-speech, which frames it as assistive tech). Still, many react as if “read-alouds” are a rhetorical patch rather than a commitment to writing-first product work.

April Smith pushes back, stating readers can “read much faster than we can listen.”

Still, a minority view defends the move.

Bill Bishop argues that Substack has always been additive, and creators can ignore video if they don’t want it.

Mikala Jamison makes a pragmatic case: non-writing features can act as discovery channels that ultimately drive readers to written work, and video appearances could support book sales or author visibility.

💡 Supporters tend to frame TV as an optional distribution rather than an identity replacement.

😬 Change is often hard, especially when it’s unexpected.

As you can imagine, commenters trade alternatives like Beehiiv, Ghost, WordPress, and “own your site,” while others argue video is optional and may help writers reach audiences.

Whether users leave in droves remains to be seen, and it's unlikely. If Substack can pull this off without degrading the writing-first experience or burying it under algorithmic noise, then it might work.

In some ways, I don’t care about what Substack does, and you maybe don’t either {{first_name|friend}}, but since Substack is ultimately VC-funded, they need to please investors and increase revenue.

So do they really care about their users and their subscribers? 🤷‍♂️

🐝 I use Beehiiv for writing my newsletters, and they are also VC-funded. The platform is constantly changing, and sometimes it’s hard to keep up, but (so far) the focus has remained on newsletters, writing, building communities and distribution.

How we consume content is constantly evolving, and sometimes that evolution is forced on us.

💡 No platform is perfect, but sometimes we have to change when the platform we use no longer serves its original purpose, and that change doesn’t align with our audience/community or goals.

🤔 I don’t know how much research Substack conducted among its users or how wide and public the beta test was (if any), but it seems this announcement has come as a shock to most.

What I do know is that you can’t please everyone, nor should you. However, alienating your subscribers and audience is another thing; don’t do this with your newsletters or email marketing campaigns.

Instead:

That’s it for this week. 👋

Welcome to Curiosity Corner! Each week, I throw one question your way…not always about email marketing, but always worth a reply.

Last week, I asked, Will you be turning on Google's "Personal Intelligence"?

“Hell, no!” and “Maybe - let’s see what others think”, tied with 2 votes each (40.00%) 👇

This week’s question is:

Every week, as I write this newsletter, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋