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LATEST POSTS 📚

If you’re new, not yet a subscriber, or just plain missed it, here are some of our recent editions.

✨ Building AI-Powered Time Management. An interview with Matt Martin, Co-Founder and CEO of Clockwise.
🌐 How Deel Does Global Compensation. An interview with Jessica Pillow, Global Head of Total Rewards at Deel.
🔐 Bootstrapped Exit, Compliance Tech & Raising From Accel. An interview with Girish Redekar, Co-Founder and CEO of Sprinto.

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HOUSEKEEPING 📨

Not great news today, as I sit in recovery mode, watching YouTube videos about my heritage. Just three days ago, in our most recent post, I talked about how I’d found the key to getting my heart rate up without exhausting my body. I was so in love with my new cardio protocol that I hit it 6-7 days in a row to varying degrees of intensity—layered on top of 4-5 days of heavy weightlifting.

The problem with this new, intense zone 3-5 workout is that I haven't gotten my heart anywhere near that range in perhaps five years or so. A few days ago, I started to notice my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest, my respiratory rate was 20% higher than usual (bad sign), and my HRV (heart rate variability) had spiked by a lazy 400%. It was kinda distressing, to be honest. It was a real ‘Am I having a heart attack?’ moment.

Luckily, with my history of training and my other Whoop data—along with the fact that I generally feel great otherwise—I have attributed this to severe overtraining and am taking a couple of days of total rest. Moral of the story: Just because you can hit the gym 6-7 days straight doesn't mean your heart won't stage a dramatic protest against it. Anyway, enjoy today’s piece!

GUEST POST 💄

Substack Just Committed Creatorcide

Every artist, political pundit, and general out-and-out weirdo has a Substack today. Thanks to the email service providers’ first-ish mover advantage in the newsletter space, it is a relatively well-known player in media today. God knows how. Their platform is trash (I’ve used it), they have zero product development that is not entirely self-serving—and very little product development at all to be fair—and some have even gone so far as to say they have/had a Nazi problem.

They are, as this pundit would put it, the most overrated company inside the creator economy today. And to add to that, they just pulled the rug on their users in a massive way. All under the cover of darkness.

To dive into this story, my buddy Tyler is back. Tyler is the CEO of beehiiv, and a man well-positioned to spill the beans on what this means for creators and how they will run their businesses moving forward. If you enjoy this, Tyler writes about the process of building beehiiv on his personal newsletter, Big Desk Energy. It’s one of the emails I make sure to check out when he ships it out every week. Anyway, enjoy today’s piece!

But first, a little backstory

Hey team, Tyler from beehiiv here. Substack just totally fucked their writers. Today, I’m going to tell you how. But before we get to that. I’d like to set the stage for how we actually got to where we are today.

You'll recall Facebook's sudden pivot that gutted publisher content back in 2018? Combined with their bullshit (and overblown) analytics, it straight-up annihilated media companies and sparked industry-wide job losses. Twitter jumped on the bandwagon, supposedly burying external links and rolling out fresh algorithm tweaks throughout 2023. All while media companies who've burned years kissing up to the algorithm overlords are suddenly racing to establish independent distribution—a scramble that's gone into overdrive now that AI's crashed the party.

The collapse of traditional media left the industry's best talent stranded. That's precisely why we created the beehiiv Media Collective—pouring millions into backing independent journalists. Funny thing is, Substack started with the exact same playbook but has completely abandoned that mission. They've morphed from a writer's toolkit into just another attention-harvesting social network.

They pivoted from "We're champions of writers" to "We're building the Substack empire" in record time. Here's the kicker, though—the motivations driving publishers versus social platforms are fundamentally incompatible:

• Zero ownership: These networks hold all the cards, controlling reader relationships while publishers get benched.

• Algorithm roulette: Your reach becomes a dice roll since platforms change the rules to benefit themselves.

• Identity death: Social networks strip away what makes publishers special, forcing everyone into the same bland template.

• Analytics blackout: Publishers get crumbs of data, making it impossible to truly know or connect with their readers.

If you've spent any time on Substack's platform, you'll spot these issues immediately—except here's the thing: they're not flaws, they're the whole damn point. Substack's running the textbook social media con: Systematically stripping writers of their autonomy, brand, and freedom. And honestly? Given their sky-high 2021 valuation, this might be their only shot at making the math work.

Here’s the lowdown on the changes

Substack dropped a creator economy bomb last month: announcing every creator must now enable Apple's in-app purchasing. Translation: Apple's pocketing 30% from every subscription that comes through their payment rails on Substack. Insane.

Here's their so-called ‘solution’—Substack's jacking up iOS prices automatically to make sure creators get their original cut (basically, readers foot the bill). The kicker? This massive change got rammed through without any creator input or ability to say no. The comments on their announcement went exactly as well as you'd imagine.

Two months. That's all it's been since Substack secured their $100M Series C, and TCG (The Chernin Group) is already running their signature hustle—squeezing growth and cash out at any cost to the core mission. These are the exact folks who torched Food52, Hodinkee, and Cameo. Let's break this down:

• iOS users just got hit with a 30% price hike on Substack.

• Creators are stuck waiting 45 days for Apple payouts.

• Zero input from creators on a move that fundamentally impacts their revenue.

• You can't turn this off or work around it.

Sure, the massive fees are awful for literally everyone (except Apple and Substack), but obsessing over the percentages completely misses what's really happening here. This is way more calculated. Here's what's actually going down...

The golden tinfoil handcuffs

Here's how things work today: Substack runs on Stripe's rails for payment processing. When creators sign up, they link up their personal Stripe accounts to the platform. This setup means creators maintain ownership over payment data and customer relationships outside of Substack's control.

When someone becomes a paid subscriber, they're actually becoming a direct customer in the creator's Stripe account behind the scenes. The creator controls everything about this relationship—they can access, modify, and handle payment details however they want (because it's literally their customer).

Substack skims 10% off the top just for making API requests to Stripe and moving money from subscribers to creators' accounts.

Here's the crucial part: creators can, whenever they want, unplug their Stripe account from Substack and plug it into any other service. Say creators get sick of handing over 10% for basic payment processing—they can bounce to beehiiv (where we don't shake down our creators for revenue) and take everything with them.

But here's where Substack's new move gets more evil again … Creators are now surrendering billing control to Apple, who becomes the actual owner of those subscriptions. Those payments, subscribers, and customer relationships? Gone from creators' Stripe accounts forever.

The critical implication: creators who want to jump ship from Substack can't take their paying subscribers anymore, unlike before. This kind of hostile platform imprisonment is catastrophic for creators. It rips away their data and autonomy while chaining them to the platform. The creator economy has an implicit agreement about data freedom—the ability to pack up and move your essential business assets between platforms. This portability is a massive win for creators.

Look, I'd love it if every beehiiv creator stayed forever, but we've built it so they can bail whenever they want. Our users can download everything—their posts, subscriber lists, even paying customers—and take it anywhere else. This freedom drives real competition. Creators pick whoever's crushing it for them right now, and switch when something better comes along.

Substack's latest stunt is a naked attempt to kill creator independence. By handing payment control to Apple, they're making another play to trap creators permanently. Like I called it back in December, this follows the standard extortion playbook of fee-harvesting platforms:

1. Seize the customer relationship.

2. Make creators dependent on the platform.

3. Jack up fees gradually.

Patreon went from 5% to 12%, Gumroad jumped from 4% to 10%, Etsy climbed from 3.5% to 6.5%. Substack's been executing this strategy right in front of us.

A quick tangent

Hey, it’s Doc again. I wanted to take a moment to tell you the real reason that I think Substack users are shitting on them on a near-daily basis. There is a little thing called product development; a concept Substack has all but ignored for the better part of the last three years. Take a look at the product development of beehiiv over the last 24 months or so.

beehiiv have released AI content tools, podcast voice cloning,, AI-powered cover art generation, website builder V2, custom HTML blocks, pixel-perfect design tools, newsletter builder 2.0, Really Simple Sending (RSS), audio newsletters, direct sponsorships, CPM Deals, custom paywalls with A/B testing, enhanced boosts network, gift subscriptions, partner program tiers, verified clicks, click maps, CTR cohort analysis, subscriber engagement tables, app marketplace, send API, webhooks in automations, multiple sending domains, Stocktwits integration, white-labeled mobile apps, enhanced forms, multi-field signup capabilities, password authentication, the Typedream acquisition bringing AI website building, advanced segmentation tools, automated welcome series, subscriber scoring, content recommendations engine, email deliverability monitoring, bounce management system, custom domains, SSL certificates, advanced analytics dashboards, revenue tracking, subscriber lifetime value calculations, churn prediction models, automated re-engagement campaigns, social media scheduling, cross-platform publishing, team collaboration features, role-based permissions, content approval workflows, and API documentation portal. And probably a load more.

Whereas, Substack have released Apple in-app purchase requirements (and granted a handful of other minor releases).

If you are looking for product development on steroids, just follow beehiiv’s product updates. Even if you don’t use the platform, just follow it to see how best-in-class releases go down. Now, back to Tyler.

It’s beginning to look like a trend

In this next section, I am going to walk you through only a small handful of the own goals Substack has had over the last few years. If I had another 1,000 words to write in this piece, I could go on.

2022: Substack releases their app, converting your subscribers into their users. Creators lose audience control while Substack blasts automated messages for them, pushing app downloads. (Seize the customer relationship).

2023: Substack employs manipulative dark pattern tactics to generate subscribers and claim responsibility for creator growth. (Make creators dependent on the platform).

2025: Substack cuts creators out of the payment relationship, ensuring they can't take their business elsewhere. (Make creators dependent on the platform).

I don't have a finance degree, but if TCG expects any return on that $1.1B valuation, the next move is obvious: cranking up Substack's fees. And since creators can't export their paid subscribers (thanks to this iOS change), what choice do they have but to eat it? This isn't just exploitative. And users hate it too.

Meanwhile, creators like Oliver Darcy who built Status on beehiiv last year maintain complete brand control, own their entire audience, and pocket every dollar they generate ($1M+ ARR year one, by the way).

Future

Smart creators and sophisticated operators understand the value of controlling their own destiny rather than handing the keys to a platform with competing priorities.

Media companies have lived through this nightmare repeatedly: Facebook, Twitter, Google, and now Substack. When the platforms that creators worked hard to build won't protect them, we need to create something new—as a community.

Extra reading / learning

• The Acquisition Mechanics: beehiiv + Swapstack - January, 2025

• How beehiiv Raised $50M (Fast) - April, 2025

• beehiiv’s 5-Year Sprint to $20M ARR - August, 2025

And that’s it! You can follow Tyler on LinkedIn and Twitter, and also check out beehiiv on their website to learn more.

BRAIN FOOD 🧠 

TWEETS OF THE WEEK 🐣 

TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week, we highlight tools we actually use inside our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Paddle—a merchant of record, managing payments, tax and compliance needs—we use their ProfitWell tool.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

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