Building an open-source Substack alternative, good idea?
So I've started using Substack recently, but I'm not quite fond of the experience:
- Like Medium, it's an awful experience to write Code in its editor, it's like they are not designed for programmers to use 🥶
- $50 to add custom domain per newsletter
- The navigation UX is quite confusing, it took 5 clicks to go to the editor
My requirements for a Substack alternative I want to switch to:
- Feature parity with Substack (namely custom domain, allow multiple publications under one account, Substack seems to offer the most features across all the similar platforms I know)
- Simple UI (like Substack, I kinda dig its simplicity)
- Lower fees for paid newsletters, more payment methods (crypto?)
- Open community, including the development, hence open source
"Why not Ghost?" No multi-site support, you need a new Ghost instance for a new publication.
Let me know if you think my complaints are valid, and if it's a good idea to build my own 😬
I agree that developing yet another blogging platform is crazy, but I couldn't resist the itch to doing it and that's how I started blogody.com. It matches the following of your requirements:
At this point in time I decided against open source for the core product. However, there are already open-source tools for Blogody and I expect a lot more to come.
tl;dr: bad idea.
My first question would be "why not revue or 30 other alternatives" rather than ghost.
Next, it seems to target UX rather than its core. If I were substack and realize I'm losing revenue due to my editor. I wouldn't take long to improve it.
Also there should be a work around about $50 custom domain name (cloaking/masking) . I bet it's also possible through API. Don't know about their terms but I think it'll be fine. So potentially a 3rd party can fix those problems.
Since it's hard to know their financials, we couldn't tell lowering fees would work for competitors/alternatives. I might be wrong but I remember reading they have special deals with top authors. Which makes sense.
It's more about how substack become substack, how they cut the deal with those top authors in the first place. Why would regular joe thinks he needs to use substack for newsletters. I don't think offering a better UX or lowering fees will attract any of those top players along with those who cluelessly chose substack.
Lowering fees = less budget for marketing and development. Flurly offers what Gumroad does maybe more with less; %1 fee. Not many people knows.
If I shut my inner pessimist's sound down and if you have a data that tells you there are enough programmers struggling with the UX who's ready to do the switch. You may focus on that part. A newsletter service tailored for programmers. Maybe with their favorite custom mono fonts, with their IDE's color theme, with a possibility to draft/send mails through API etc.
I can't shut the voice down for a long time, considering programmers can find their own way. This doesn't mean they'd put the effort in case you have a good offer.