Substack的未来

The New York Times is obsessed with Substack. A few months ago, it published Why We’re Freaking Out About Substack. Recently, they published Substack’s Growth Spurt Brings Growing Pains.

《纽约时报》对Substack很着迷。几个月前，它发表了《我们为什么对Substack感到恐惧》。最近，他们又发表了Substack的增长带来了成长的烦恼。

They’re right to be obsessed. Substack might replace them.

他们的痴迷是对的。Substack可能会取代他们。

Today I’ll explain why that might happen. And since the lessons are applicable to all creator economy companies, we will also get a glimpse of the future of video, audio, streaming, and other creator economy verticals.

今天我将解释为什么这可能发生。由于这些经验适用于所有创作者经济公司，我们也将瞥见视频、音频、流媒体和其他创作者经济垂直领域的未来。

To do all of that, we need to start with yet another competitor to Substack and The New York Times: Medium.

要做到这一切，我们需要从Substack和《纽约时报》的另一个竞争者开始：Medium。

In Platforms and Aggregators, I explained what aggregators are: companies like Google, Facebook, Youtube, Twitch… They all have the same thing in common: they aggregate supply and demand in one place, which they own, and make it really easy for demand to find supply.

平台和聚合器中，我解释了什么是聚合器：像谷歌、Facebook、Youtube、Twitch这样的公司......它们都有一个共同点：它们把供求关系聚集在一个地方，它们拥有这个地方，并使需求者非常容易找到供应。

Medium is trying to become the aggregator of articles.

Medium正试图成为文章的聚合者。

Why are they trying to do that? Because aggregators can become massive: tens of billions of dollars in value, sometimes hundreds of billions or even trillions. About 70% of the value created by tech comes from companies like aggregators, fueled by network effects. The more supply they host, the more demand comes to see it. The more demand is there, the more suppliers come to find new demand for what they have to offer.

他们为什么要这样做？因为聚合器可以变得巨大：价值几百亿美元，有时是几千亿甚至几万亿。在网络效应的推动下，科技创造的价值中约有70%来自于像聚合器这样的公司。他们主持的供应越多，就有越多的需求前来观看。需求越多，越多的供应商来为他们所提供的东西寻找新的需求。

So what has been Medium’s strategy to become an aggregator?

那么，Medium成为一个聚合者的战略是什么？

The first step was a tool to easily publish online. Before Medium, it was really hard to do. Your articles either looked like crap, or it took too long to set up something like...