Substack debuts feature that spooked Musk into suppressing Substack tweets
Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg)
Today, Substack officially rolled out Notes, the product that creates a feed that allows Substack creators and subscribers to interact. It functions so much like Twitter that it controversially caused Twitter to restrict links to Substack. But Substack doesn’t see Notes as a Twitter rival, telling Ars that Substack has no plans to become the next Twitter.
“It's not accurate to call Notes a rival to Twitter,” Helen Tobin, Substack’s head of communications, told Ars. “They have two different business models, with different incentives.”
Unlike tweets, which can be viewed publicly (as long as an account isn’t locked in private mode), Substack Notes can only be viewed and commented upon by Substack subscribers. Tobin told Ars that, while “notes may look like familiar social media feeds,” the “ultimate goal” of launching the product is “to convert casual readers” already perusing Substack content “into paying subscribers.”