A Community Cannot Go Mainstream. Substack's Won't Either

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it

Photo by Marc Sendra Martorell on Unsplash

Happy Monday, y’all!

So let’s talk community in regards to Substack. Substack is in that place where it’s growing, but it hasn’t hit hyper growth yet.

As Substack continues to grow, there will inevitably be more and more talk from Substack users about how they can’t wait till ‘everyone’ discovers Substack. They can’t wait till ‘everyone’ joins Substack with them.

I can. Because if ‘everyone’ joins Substack, it will fundamentally change the experience on the site. And not in a good way.

Growth must be very carefully managed if an online community is to retain its vitality and value. Unfortunately, growth online often happens slowly, then suddenly. Typically, a growing online community reaches a tipping point of discovery where ‘everyone’ joins, and in the process, the community has to expand to accommodate ‘everyone’.

And many communities struggle to manage the changes that result from rapid growth.

Here’s a real world example. Let’s say you and your friend Sarah decide to go to a new family-owned coffee shop in town. The shop just opened a week earlier, and you and Sarah are the only customers. But the father behind the counter, and his daughters who bring you your coffee, are all incredibly nice to you both, they ask how your day is going, what the town is like, etc. You and Sarah vow to return soon as you enjoyed your experience.

Next week, you and Sarah return to the coffee shop. The father and his daughters all remember you and again you have a lovely experience. This time, you notice a couple of customers are there besides you and Sarah. A few days later, you bring along your friend Jennifer who joins you and Sarah. The father and daughters welcome Jennifer. You notice the shop is now half full. As you and your friends are leaving the shop, another customer stops you and says ‘Isn’t this place the best? I just love the family and the atmosphere here!’

It seems most everyone agrees. Over the next few weeks, the shop became busier and busier every time you and your friends went there. Soon, the shop was packed and the wait times began to become excessive, for which the father and daughters apologized profusely. The shop was the talk of town, and it became so busy that the family running it were forced to start adding tables outside on the sidewalk to accommodate overflow.

Then in the fall, one of the daughters decided to move to another city as she had gotten a job offer on completion of her undergraduate studies in college. Around that same time, the father got an offer from one of those coffee chains to buy his shop at a nice price, and he took the chain up on its offer.

Over the next few months, as the family-run coffee shop transitioned into a chain, the crowds got smaller and smaller. The ‘baristas’ just couldn’t match the charm and appreciation that the family owners had provided. One day you and Sarah were sitting in the shop, which was now mostly empty, and as you get up to leave, Sarah remarks ‘Remember a few months when we first discovered this place and couldn’t wait to see it grow? Guess we need to be careful what we wish for!”

This same dynamic plays out every time an online community grows. Every community will eventually reach a breaking point where it fractures. That point arrives at a different time and location for each community. But if growth continues unabated, it will arrive.

For now, Substack is growing slowly and organically, it seems. And I think that’s a good thing. Every community has its own culture and identity. Substack is no different. As long as new members can be brought in gradually and acclimated to the unique culture that Substack offers, then the community as a whole will grow and become more valuable to all members.

The problems arise when there is a sort of ‘land rush’ mentality where suddenly EVERYONE wants to join Substack to see what ‘all the fuss’ is about. That would lead to a lot of people joining who have no idea how to participate in Substack’s community in a way that creates value.

Think about why we love Substack. Think of all the ways that Substack is different from most other platforms:

• Very little arguing. Not a lot of discussion about hot button issues, but if there is, most everyone is respectful.

• Not a lot of blatant self promotion. We all promote our work, but most people also go out of their way to promote the work of other writers that they find value in. There is an innate sense of how we all have to create value for the larger group, we can’t simply extract it.

• Almost no trolling. I’ve only seen one or two instances of anything close to trolling behavior here. You can’t spend 5 seconds on Twitter/X without running into multiple trolls.

• Most everyone is polite and helpful. This is a byproduct of a smaller group where everyone connects with each other more often. We are all more aware of the value this community on Substack provides for us, so we want to create more value for others in return.

If Substack ever experiences hyper growth, the platform will see an influx of new users who have no idea how the community on Substack functions. So they will default to how they have used other social media platforms. That will typically mean more arguing, trolling, and self-promotion. Because that’s the type of behavior that a lot of people engage in when they use social media, unfortunately.

For those of us on Substack who want to preserve our community for as long as possible, we have to be proactive in nurturing it. We need to continue to model the type of behavior that we want new members to engage in. We need to teach new members how it pays to be helpful, to be courteous and share more than you take.

I’ll say this: I am doing almost no promotion of Substack on my other networks. That’s intentional, because I don’t want everyone rushing here without understanding what makes Substack unique. Privately, I am reaching out to a few friends and inviting them here. But am I blasting out to my 37k followers on X that they should come to Substack? Absolutely not.

For now, let’s just enjoy Substack for what it is, while it is.

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Have a great Monday, see you on Thursday!

Mack

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