I tweeted this last night:
The future is now.
You can't always get what you want1 from Substack for reasons such as:
what you want is impossible2
what you want is possible but difficult to implement
Substack has other priorities
Substack is overwhelmed with requests from people wanting things
Since my post about the random link/button, I've heard from several people who want a better random button – or want or need better discovery or other features from Substack.
Though I used the word “need” in an earlier post suggesting a random button, I doubt anyone really needs a random button. It could be nice; but it's not necessary.
Discoverability of newsletters might be a need. If people aren't finding your newsletter, how will it get much readership?
My question to you is essentially the one from the tweet:
What do you need from Substack (or, as a reader, from Substack newsletters)?
This is a reference to a famous song by The Rolling Stones, which I will embed here for your entertainment.
In this instance, I don't actually mean “you,” the reader, but a hypothetical “you” who asks for impossible things. 😉
Self-categorization options might be nice. If, for instance, I had a drop-down list option on each post with categories like 'Arts and Literature, Politics, Entertainment News, Current Events', things like that.
I said this in the "random button" comments, but I think it bears repeating: some kind of indexing. Whether that's tags or folders or just an actual index, we need something that makes it easier for readers to find back issues.
As a writer, though, what I really want are templates. I follow the same format every single issue. It'd be nice if I could save a step with formatting by just going to the correction section of my template and write without having to either format on the fly or remember to go back and check every italic and header before publishing.