I'm glad you wrote this. I've been experiencing the very same thing. And it does seem like it's either a technical problem with individual accounts, or Substack has instituted shadowbans and you've been put on the list. I didn't find your article through Substack, incidentally. I found it from a search on the Substack subreddit.
My notes show the same weird non-stats that yours do. So what happens when you look at the profile of someone who follows or subscribes to you, do you see your name listed? I've noticed that my name does not in fact show up on the profiles of people that I know are following or who subscribe. They did in the past.
Have you tried emailing the growth purveyors, or anyone else, directly with a link to this article?
So I looked at people who subscribe to Laudable Audible and I do see Laudable Audible on their subscriber list.
It seems to me like Substack is glitchy, hard to get answers, and hard to make sense with the tools we have because even their View Stats analytics that we can see doesn’t always work, and since impressions aren’t included at all, we have no idea how many other accounts see any given Note.
Maybe Substack will get better, but as it is it’s very frustrating to write into the wind.
I haven’t tried emailing them with this article directly. I mentioned them in the Post, but who knows if they even saw it, and if they did, given their silence, they don’t know how to respond or don’t care to.
Indeed, this place is glitchy and almost getting worse. Couldn't type notes in the app for months, and after reinstall today it just crashes, and of course there's no support. I hate having to complain about this kinda stuff, but there's a lot of brokenness about this place.
It is frustrating---even if writing into the wind is all anyone has ever done, and ever will. We can just sense it a little stronger here.
Thanks for writing about it, I receive 'Stats will be available soon. Note stats refresh every hour' notice all the time and I haven't seen any numbers even once. I am as confused as you.
They've described Notes as flying the plane while they are building the plane and that's been my experience. I believe that they prioritize Notes from people who have the paid subscriptions turned on and I definitely feel like the word "new" gets picked up a lot (as in "I'm new here.") However, I did have a friend who went viral in a Note that doesn't have paid subscriptions and didn't mention new. She had just dealt with the experience of Hurricane Helene and was frustrated by all of the junk she was seeing in Notes after she was finally able to get back online. A unique situation but going viral happened for her.
Just like all the other social media platforms, substack is pay to play. People pay money to get boosted, to get bots responding to their posts and notes.
You can bet the administrators make the posts of their buddies nice and highly visible as well.
When TLG publishes or comments, for example, there is a very high reply rate. Experience in writing online has a way of getting one good at cutting to the heart of a matter .. to the rage of everyone who's just hoping they can "become an influencer" by being a basic boot licker. Strangely, a huge percentage of the notes magically become "unavailable" to the author while still receiving like after like.
Those types buy a bunch of bots and try to use all the fad driven keywords (not always a bad strategy, but It does get ridiculous). They often pay many thousands of dollars to get that boost.
Then once the fake numbers are there, The account is visible enough for more real people to see it. They start subscribing, thinking they are on to the next big(ish) thing, so hip and "with it".
Meanwhile most of the original, thought-provoking, and even transcendent writing is shadowbanned. We are supposed to not notice, you see. So stop that noticing right now, this instant!
Really, thank you for writing this. It's time to shine a big fat spotlight on what is clearly Substack chicanery.
I don't like how, with Notes, I can't just see "most recent" posts from all users under a specific topic or keyword. So if I type in "photography" for example, I'd like to discover new writers under that category. Instead, I'm presented with the same handful of writers who aren't really even posting anything to do with "photography". And often these notes are often days or weeks old.
Bottom line, I don't know how to discover people on Notes, and so I doubt people know how to discover me.
Found this post also outside of Substack. I do see stats for Notes but they’re always very small, between 7-15 impressions and no likes. I read another post that it’s good to subscribe to others more, so Substack will know which readers would like you. Do you still have the same problem or has it gotten better?
Nearly a year later and I’m also glad you wrote this. I am experiencing the same thing, and because I have extracted myself from all other social media, I am not cross posting any of my newsletters to other platforms, so my growth is stagnating right now. The lack of engage with my notes is inducing old feelings of social media clamoring for likes and shares. I think I’ll back off the whole notes and growth thing and just go back to writing what I want to write and trust that folx who want to read my rambling will find me.
Same here. To see the stats I have to go on the website because on the app the option isn't even available. A lot things missing on my app. And no stats available, and no one seems to se my notes... annoying.
Had no problem since joining, but now the last 2 days my notes also don’t show any statistics. Only after about 18 hours (!) and then not even right. I have a note which impressions are stuck on 169, yet it has grown likes. How is that possible. It’s really annoying cause you cannot really find out what people liked and what made them sub
Yeah I kind of figured there would be no response from the growth purveyors.
I'm glad you wrote this. I've been experiencing the very same thing. And it does seem like it's either a technical problem with individual accounts, or Substack has instituted shadowbans and you've been put on the list. I didn't find your article through Substack, incidentally. I found it from a search on the Substack subreddit.
My notes show the same weird non-stats that yours do. So what happens when you look at the profile of someone who follows or subscribes to you, do you see your name listed? I've noticed that my name does not in fact show up on the profiles of people that I know are following or who subscribe. They did in the past.
Have you tried emailing the growth purveyors, or anyone else, directly with a link to this article?
So I looked at people who subscribe to Laudable Audible and I do see Laudable Audible on their subscriber list.
It seems to me like Substack is glitchy, hard to get answers, and hard to make sense with the tools we have because even their View Stats analytics that we can see doesn’t always work, and since impressions aren’t included at all, we have no idea how many other accounts see any given Note.
Maybe Substack will get better, but as it is it’s very frustrating to write into the wind.
I haven’t tried emailing them with this article directly. I mentioned them in the Post, but who knows if they even saw it, and if they did, given their silence, they don’t know how to respond or don’t care to.
Indeed, this place is glitchy and almost getting worse. Couldn't type notes in the app for months, and after reinstall today it just crashes, and of course there's no support. I hate having to complain about this kinda stuff, but there's a lot of brokenness about this place.
It is frustrating---even if writing into the wind is all anyone has ever done, and ever will. We can just sense it a little stronger here.
been active here 10 days. Have yet to see any of the NOTES I have posted, POST. Nothing on activities, nothing under NOTES on webpage. NOTHING.
Thanks for writing about it, I receive 'Stats will be available soon. Note stats refresh every hour' notice all the time and I haven't seen any numbers even once. I am as confused as you.
I have the exact same problem. And the lack of support from Substack just makes it worse.
Feel your pain. It seems like a waste of time. And there’s a lot of b.s. about it works floating out there
They've described Notes as flying the plane while they are building the plane and that's been my experience. I believe that they prioritize Notes from people who have the paid subscriptions turned on and I definitely feel like the word "new" gets picked up a lot (as in "I'm new here.") However, I did have a friend who went viral in a Note that doesn't have paid subscriptions and didn't mention new. She had just dealt with the experience of Hurricane Helene and was frustrated by all of the junk she was seeing in Notes after she was finally able to get back online. A unique situation but going viral happened for her.
Just like all the other social media platforms, substack is pay to play. People pay money to get boosted, to get bots responding to their posts and notes.
You can bet the administrators make the posts of their buddies nice and highly visible as well.
When TLG publishes or comments, for example, there is a very high reply rate. Experience in writing online has a way of getting one good at cutting to the heart of a matter .. to the rage of everyone who's just hoping they can "become an influencer" by being a basic boot licker. Strangely, a huge percentage of the notes magically become "unavailable" to the author while still receiving like after like.
Those types buy a bunch of bots and try to use all the fad driven keywords (not always a bad strategy, but It does get ridiculous). They often pay many thousands of dollars to get that boost.
Then once the fake numbers are there, The account is visible enough for more real people to see it. They start subscribing, thinking they are on to the next big(ish) thing, so hip and "with it".
Meanwhile most of the original, thought-provoking, and even transcendent writing is shadowbanned. We are supposed to not notice, you see. So stop that noticing right now, this instant!
Really, thank you for writing this. It's time to shine a big fat spotlight on what is clearly Substack chicanery.
I don't like how, with Notes, I can't just see "most recent" posts from all users under a specific topic or keyword. So if I type in "photography" for example, I'd like to discover new writers under that category. Instead, I'm presented with the same handful of writers who aren't really even posting anything to do with "photography". And often these notes are often days or weeks old.
Bottom line, I don't know how to discover people on Notes, and so I doubt people know how to discover me.
Also found you through reddit! Same frustrations here 🫤
Found this post also outside of Substack. I do see stats for Notes but they’re always very small, between 7-15 impressions and no likes. I read another post that it’s good to subscribe to others more, so Substack will know which readers would like you. Do you still have the same problem or has it gotten better?
It’s never gotten better which is why I stopped posting Notes and long form articles here.
hey! if the intersection of internet culture, personal branding and capitalism is something you would like to read about, i wrote a piece on it! https://open.substack.com/pub/malekarcd/p/attention-is-the-new-currency?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer
Nearly a year later and I’m also glad you wrote this. I am experiencing the same thing, and because I have extracted myself from all other social media, I am not cross posting any of my newsletters to other platforms, so my growth is stagnating right now. The lack of engage with my notes is inducing old feelings of social media clamoring for likes and shares. I think I’ll back off the whole notes and growth thing and just go back to writing what I want to write and trust that folx who want to read my rambling will find me.
Yeah it’s so random, I’m seeing it now lol
Same here. To see the stats I have to go on the website because on the app the option isn't even available. A lot things missing on my app. And no stats available, and no one seems to se my notes... annoying.
Had no problem since joining, but now the last 2 days my notes also don’t show any statistics. Only after about 18 hours (!) and then not even right. I have a note which impressions are stuck on 169, yet it has grown likes. How is that possible. It’s really annoying cause you cannot really find out what people liked and what made them sub
Oh my, same! The stat is not updating!