Tipping on Substack
Tipping would be better than subscriptions for writers just starting out.
The day we arrived in Manhattan, my new employer put us in the Hotel Pennsylvania, an old-timey hotel opposite Madison Square Garden. The next day, we took the Long Island Railroad down to stay with Uncle Romeo and Auntie Nina in Queens.
As we came out of the elevator with our suitcases, a bellboy rushed over to help us.
“I’m good thanks”, said I.
“No, let me help you”, said he.
The bellboy grabbed my two suitcases and carried them 30 feet to the front steps. As he gave them back to me, he stood with his hand out, waiting for a tip. I gave him five dollars.
“That’s not enough”, he said.
That was my introduction to 25 years of American tipping culture.
Beer in a bar? Gotta tip.
Paying the bill in a restaurant? They ask you for a tip. If you don’t tip, they feel insulted. Do you wanna tip 20% or 30%? Why don’t their employers pay them enough?
It’s such a relief to be back in England where tipping is reserved for special occasions. Tipping could work on Substack though.
Substack has a wonderful business model where readers subscribe to a writer for a monthly fee, usually $5. Great writers earn millions. No advertising. No sponsored posts (aka advertising). Just great writing.
However, if you subscribe to dozens of writers, that soon adds up and before you know it, you are paying more for Substack than you pay for Netflix, the BBC, The Guardian and New Statesman combined.
When a writer puts up the PAID SUBSCRIBERS ONLY notice, you have a choice. Do you cough up your $5 to read just this post or do you skip it? I usually just skip it. “I’ll subscribe later”, I tell myself. But I never do.
I hesitate to subscribe because I have no idea what I am getting for my $5. What if I subscribe and the writer stops writing? What if this is their only good post and they churn out only dross after this one? What if I forget to subscribe and I end up giving them $5 a month for the rest of my days?
These are all pathetic excuses, I know — I gave the bellboy $5 after all — but these are the pathetic excuses I give myself for not paying for great writing.
How much easier psychologically it would be to just give the writer a tip?
Subscribing works for those famous journalists who’ve already made a name for themselves but it doesn’t work so great for writers just starting out. Who will pay a subscription to a writer with only seven posts and fourteen subscribers? And what about the writers? If they are anything like me, they feel vain asking for money.
I would be ashamed to ask for a subscription. My writing is not good enough yet and I feel it would create an obligation for me to write on a schedule. I don’t want to do that. I want to write when I want to write.
I’m glad Substack has a subscription model for those famous journalists but I think a tipping model would work better for us little guys and girls who are just starting out.
A few writers are starting to put Buy Me a Coffee buttons on their posts but it is such a faff to pay that $3. It takes 7 clicks to get through the tipping site and another 9 to get through Stripe. Then you have to find your credit card and approve your payment on your iPhone. What a palaver!
Why doesn’t Substack have a tip button?
If I like your post, I’ll click the button and give you $3 for your coffee. If you want to restrict your marvellous essay to paying customers, charge us a few dollars to read it. I’ll pay.
For new writers especially, readers will be more likely to tip than take out a subscription and we writers can think of a $1 tip as an extra-special like.
Substack can save up all the tips and give us a huge wadge of money at the end of each month. Maybe readers will deposit $20 into a tipping purse at the start of each month as a way to manage their budget. Substack will take their cut — of course — but we’ll get the glow of satisfaction of helping Substack be successful. Substack currently gets nothing when we use Patreon.
Substack has the politest, brightest social media community on the web but as Substack gets more popular, we’ll have to deal with those unprincipled degenerates oozing in from Twitter to pollute our streams of dialogue. Famous journalists can restrict their comments section to readers who pay but the rest of us will have to deal with those reprobates by blocking them. Worse, young women will continue to endure the pervs and wannabe romantics who think female writers like to be complimented on their appearance.
While we can currently restrict posts and comments to paid subscribers, we might let readers comment only if they’ve tipped in the past — maybe they’ll tip again! This will keep out 90% of the ill-mannered deviants and the maniacs.
I really want Subsack to succeed and, one day soon, they’ll have to decide whether to accept advertising or have more podcasts and videos. If they do, I fear we’ll end up like Facebook with endless streams of corporate drivel or like Twitter with its bubbling cesspool of human waste. Right now, Substack has its thoughtful niche as a haven for great writers. I hope we can make it successful without it becoming another Instagram.
☕️ Buy me a coffee? ☕️
It won’t make me rich but it’ll make me happy.
I agree Ragged. I don’t want to paywall any of my stuff. I want the widest readership possible. But I also put a lot of work into my posts, so it’s great that so many readers have taken a paid subscription. I’m very grateful for their support.But not everyone can or wants to take a paid subscription .
I find it a bit annoying when I read a post and hit a paywall half way. I don’t tend to read ‘previews’ because of that. I do pay for subs but they soon add up.
The Buy Me a Coffee works well. And again it gives me a real boost when a post leads to lots of ‘coffees’. But a Substack own tip jar would be great, integrated and a simple ‘one button’ stop.
In real life it’s all going the wrong way. Me and a mate got a coffee in town yesterday. The card machine had a ‘tip’ button when it came to tap my card. No thanks. You just charged me nearly £4 for a coffee!
What a great post. First, I hate the American tipping culture. In some hotels they give you a card saying how much you have to tip each person per day (half of whom you’ll never come across – the person who stacked the dishwasher after your meal?) - I just wish they would include it in my bill or pay people properly. I love that there's no concept of tipping in Japan (although it's creeping in to the big cities). In Britain I like the concept of "buying one on" or "having one for yourself" in your local so the bartender can have a drink on you after hours. But in restaurants and the like then we're going the American way.
But, back to the point. YES – add tipping to Substack. It’s an excellent idea. And make it easy to do it with Paypal, etc. You have my vote!
JustInTime