Email Vs Platform
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One of the great things about going to conferences is you get to catch up with people you haven’t seen in a while. In this case it was Paul Gowder.
Paul is what some might call an “Email Guru.” I interviewed him about starting and Email on episode 974.
When the School of Podcasting merged with Podpage at the end of 2025 we had three email lists. One for Podpage, and I had two for the School of Podcasting. One on Kit, and this one on Substack.
Kit vs Substack
When you look at them side by side, Substack suits writers (often fired journalists or ex-politicians) who want simplicity and a built-in community/discovery layer and don't mind the revenue cut. Kit suits creators (like someone driving traffic to a membership site) who want lower fees at scale, more automation, and tighter control over segmenting and monetizing an audience.
So I put my Kit subscription on hold and have been just using Substack. While the list is growing due to their discovery tools, I’m not seeing as much traffic from my newsletter to my site as I did previously. So maybe all those automations I had setup in Kit were doing what they were supposed to do (drive traffic to my services).
A Really Good Point From Paul
In talking with Paul he mentioned how Substack is becoming more and more of a “Platform” than an email service. I would agree with this as there is commenting, video, etc. They appear to be becoming yet another “all in one” resource.
Then Paul made a very good point:
