Why X is not a threat to Substack

X has its virtues, but it is not in the same market as Substack

Feb 21, 2024

Elon Musk has made no secret that he wants X to be the “everything app,” and that includes being a place for long-form written content, the very content that is the core of Substack’s business. Yet, if you consider X carefully, you will realize that it is no threat to Substack’s long-term future.

Want to write long-form content on X? Pay up!

As I understand it, in order to write longer posts, an X user must pay Elon $16 per month. I believe it is called “X Pro." There are numerous other features if you wish to read about them at the link. However, for this article, I am only interested in the “longer posts” feature.

Some of you have been on Substack for various amounts of time. How would you feel if you had to pay Substack $16 per month in order to write content on this platform? Would you do it? I doubt many would, particularly newer writers who don’t have followings and are just trying to get themselves established.

Certainly established names like Matt Taibbi, Andrew Sullivan, etc. could easily afford $16 per month, but lesser-known writers might never even have tried Substack if they had to pay that much to write content here. I know I would not be here, as it would not be worth that much money for me to try to establish a following.

Speaking of followings, Elon’s money-grubbing is also a problem with drawing new users onto X. In order to have your comments and posts seen, you have to cough up the money to Big Daddy Elon. If you don't, then you can languish in obscurity on X, regardless of how much content you write and how many comments you make.

Elon’s requirement to pay is one of the reasons why I don’t bother posting much on X. It’s a lot of money to roll the dice to see if you can build up a big enough following to be worthwhile. You might or might not succeed, but you will have to pay Elon his money regardless of how you do on X as a content creator.

But what about readers on X versus Substack?

Another problem with X being a Substack competitor comes from readers.

Readers on Substack are deliberately looking for long-form content. They want to read something more substantive than a tweet (or whatever they are called on X now), and they are willing to pay for it. They are not on Substack for a quick dopamine fix, and then on to the next tweet. Furthermore, they want content with substance to it that they can take their time reading.

What does X have to offer in that regard? Little to nothing. Long tweets do not seem to play well on X. I remember when Elon announced it, and there seemed to be a general dislike of long-form content, with people vowing they would never read such tweets. So far, the idea of long-form tweets doesn’t seem to have taken off on X, from both a content creator and user perspective.

And, let’s face it here, if longer tweets aren’t popular on X, why would Elon expect full-blown articles that can run for thousands of words to be appreciated on X? Who on X is going to read such articles, and who will create them?

Substack Notes versus X

Another thing to consider is the difference between X and Substack’s Notes social media service. As I noted before, if you want your posts and comments to be seen on X, you have to pay for visibility. But neither writers nor readers have to do that on Substack. Anyone can post on Notes and have their post seen by others on the service, without having to pay Substack a fee for visibility.

This, of course, has been a stick up Big Daddy Elon’s ass since the day Notes was released. If you post a Substack link on X, your tweet will be devalued and seen by very few people, since Elon’s algo effectively kills the reach of any Substack link. I have even seen certain Substack writers have to post an image of their article and tell people to type the URL into their browser to get to the content. 🙄

When I saw Elon’s original temper tantrum about Notes, I just rolled my eyes because I knew right from the outset that Notes would be a very different kind of community than X. Comparing the two was just stupid on Elon’s part, and it shows his lack of understanding of the subtleties of online communities. He should have known that Notes was never a threat to X since it was always going to draw a different kind of crowd.

Elon’s decision to try to stick it to the owners of Substack has backfired in his face, particularly if you consider the $16 per month fee he is charging. All he achieved was to drive people away from X and onto Notes because they didn’t want to pay his fee. In the case of writers, he drove us away because we realized we couldn’t promote our Substack content on X regardless of whether we paid his monthly fee.

So don’t worry about X as a competitor to Substack

All of this means that you don’t need to worry about X as a competitor to Substack. It simply isn’t in Substack’s market or its league. X is a legacy service that is still mired in its own past. It has much to offer in its own way, but it will never be able to evolve into a Substack competitor because of its owner’s simple-minded misperception of Notes and because its users also don’t want it to be Substack; they want short-form content only.

For myself, I use X as a source of material when I find something interesting for my weekly goody bag or for an article about a particular topic. So I take from X, but I do not give much, if anything, to it, and that is Big Daddy Elon’s fault for trying to make me pay for visibility. I’m not paying $16 per month for the privilege of providing content for Elon Musk’s financial benefit.

So I’ll never pay for X, but then I am biased anyway, since I have always preferred long-from content to short-form. For me, X simply doesn’t offer enough value to pay for a monthly subscription. Your mileage may vary in that regard, and if you want to pay Elon’s fee, more power to you.

Note that I don’t want to be too harsh on Elon here; I’m still glad he bought Twitter. He took it away from the woke commies, and he had made it at least a bit fairer in terms of how it moderates content.

So thanks for all that, Elon. I wish you success over the long haul with X, but I’m still not paying you $16 per month.

A few words about Substack Notes

Now, putting X aside, what about Notes? Notes is still a relatively new social media service. In terms of features, it is still early, and it will continue to improve and grow. I look forward to seeing new features added to Notes as time goes by.

Features aside, if you are a Substack writer, you should absolutely be posting on Notes. Since Notes is new, you have a chance to build a following on a far more level playing field than X, which is dominated by mega-accounts that have been there for many years. In other words, with Notes, you are getting in on the ground floor, and you will benefit from your participation on Notes for many years.

Notes also has a very different kind of vibe than X. You don’t have to have a gigantic account to get engagement from people. You just need to post interesting remarks or other kinds of content. People will respond, and you can build your own following to promote your writing on Substack.

So I always recommend that new writers on Substack jump right into Notes. Connect with your fellow writers, and also the readers that hang out on Notes. Talk to them, share your thoughts, and when you’ve finished writing an article, post a link and a few comments about it on Notes. Others might see it and restack it, thus getting you some visibility for your article, and that might get you free or paid subscribers.

I regard the decision of Substack’s management to create Notes as genius. I did not understand this when Notes was first announced, but now that I’ve used it for a while, I see the true value of such a community. It has made Substack a much better experience all around, and I salute Substack’s management for doing it.

What is your take on all of this? Do you still see X as a competitor to Substack? Share your thoughts in the comments.