Unlike search and social platforms, Substack enables writers to build direct subscriber relationships through its publishing and email infrastructure. But its evolution also raises a broader question for publishers building audiences beyond their own websites and newsletters: How can they strengthen direct relationships with readers while ensuring that the platforms facilitating those connections don’t become the primary destination or that supplants the brand? 

Concordia University researcher Will Riley examines this tension in Praise, rent, and the platform: Substack and the enclosure of blog culture. Writing in New Media & Society, he explores how Substack promotes independent publishing while becoming a destination for the writing and discussion it hosts. 

His qualitative approach combines close examination of Substack’s interface, company messaging, promotional videos, and selected reader comments. Drawing on scholarship about blogging and platform economics, he considers how these elements strengthen the company’s position between writers and audiences. 

From publishing service to editorial destination 

Substack gives writers tools to create and host posts, send newsletters, and manage subscriptions. Its discovery features serve a different function: recommendations, feeds and editorial selections influence which publications gain visibility. Readers choose what to read, but Substack helps organize the choices they encounter. 

The transition from Substack Reads to The Substack Post illustrates this broader role. The former offers a weekly reading list. The Substack Post combines more frequent publishing, multimedia formats and an integrated interface, presenting selected work through Substack’s own editorial publication. 

Links between posts also keep readers moving among publications within the platform. Riley contrasts this circulation with blogging practices that connect independently operated websites across the open web. He interprets the difference as a concentration of publishing, discovery, and discussion within one commercial system. 

The implication concerns more than additional exposure for individual writers. Through its own editorial presence, Substack establishes a reason for readers to visit even before they choose a particular publication. 

Who receives credit for the experience? 

Reader responses to The Substack Post’s launch announcement provide another part of the argument. Selected comments thank Substack for creating a place for serious writing and culture. Riley focuses on the recipient of that gratitude. 

Writers provide the content, while readers contribute recommendations, discussion, and attention. Those contributions make the experience valuable. When users praise Substack for the resulting experience, the company gains recognition for what its participants collectively create. 

This is the mechanism behind Riley’s concept of “praise.” Appreciation does more than acknowledge useful software: it presents Substack itself as a source of valuable writing and community. That reputation can make the platform attractive to other readers and writers, reinforcing its role as a publishing destination. 

Riley describes unpaid participation as a form of rent because the company benefits from activity within infrastructure it owns. He does not calculate that benefit or demonstrate that participants receive an inadequate return. His argument identifies how publishing and reader interaction can build an asset for the intermediary as well as its users. 

How the brand borrows from creative practice 

The promotional series Substack on Film offers a visual counterpart to the reader comments. One video shows writers discussing picture books in a backyard, emphasizing physical books, paper and the creative process. Riley interprets these choices as an appeal to craftsmanship and sustained attention. 

In his reading, the imagery connects Substack with an experience that contrasts with conventional social media. Writers’ practices become part of the company’s brand promise. The platform promotes itself through the qualities of the work it hosts, rather than through its technical features alone. 

This distinction matters to the independence argument. Substack can support individual creative businesses while using their collective appeal to strengthen its own position. The article acknowledges that some writers build audiences and sustainable livelihoods through the service. Its critique concerns how those opportunities also contribute to a commercial environment that Substack governs. 

What this Substack research establishes 

The study offers an interpretation of platform power, grounded in specific examples of design, messaging, and user responses. It does not measure audience loyalty, publisher revenue, or writers’ dependence on Substack for growth. The selected comments also cannot establish how readers generally perceive the company. 

These limits distinguish the argument from a claim that Substack necessarily weakens publishers’ audience relationships. The research instead explains how an intermediary can gain influence and recognition while helping independent publications succeed. 

Where audience value accumulates 

For premium publishers, the useful connection lies between distribution, and the identity readers attach to an experience. A publication supplies distinctive work; a platform can make that work easier to find and discuss. Both contribute value, but they build different assets. 

The research also highlights the risks of building audience relationships on third-party platforms. Changes to a platform’s recommendation system can affect audience engagement, while the attention generated by publishers’ content may strengthen the platform’s brand as much as their own. That makes it important for publishers to consider how well they can sustain those relationships independently of the platform. 

Riley directs attention to the platform’s asset: a destination whose appeal grows through the work and participation of others. For publishers, reach alone does not reveal whether that activity also strengthens their own businesses. The lasting value of platform discovery depends on how effectively it builds recognition, repeat demand, and support for their publications.