Why Do People Unsubscribe?
If losing subscribers makes you question your writing, here's the perspective every newsletter creator needs.
Why did they come if they intended to leave?
Somewhere out there, right now, someone is unsubscribing from your newsletter. Maybe it happened five minutes ago. Maybe it’s happening as you read this sentence.
And if you’re anything like most writers on here, some small part of you just flinched.
I want to talk you out of that flinch. Not with platitudes, but with an actual reframe that changed how I feel every time that little notification pops up.
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Let’s start with the easy part.
The unsubscribes that were never real to begin with
You know the posts I mean.
They show up in Notes constantly: “Sub for sub,” “Subscribe and I’ll subscribe back,” “Let’s grow together,” “Connect with fellow Substack writers.”
Someone taps the button, you get a little dopamine hit, your subscriber count ticks up by one, and for about four seconds it feels like progress.
It isn’t. Not really.
Those people didn’t subscribe because your writing moved them. They didn’t read your last essay, or your first one, or any of them.
They clicked a button because someone asked them to, in the same spirit as clicking a button back. There was no relationship there to begin with — just two numbers agreeing to go up together for a moment.
So when those subscribers quietly vanish a few weeks later, once your actual emails start landing in their inbox and they realize this isn’t the arrangement they thought it was, nothing has been lost.
You can’t lose a reader you never had.
That unsubscribe isn’t a verdict on your writing. It’s just two strangers’ numbers going back to where they started.
Fine. That one’s easy to make peace with. It barely even counts.
The unsubscribe I actually want to talk about today is a different animal entirely.
The ones who actually knew you
I mean the people who used to comment on your posts. Who you half-recognized by their little profile picture because they showed up in your inbox so often.
Who maybe replied to one of your emails once with something personal, something that told you they weren’t just skimming — they were really reading. Maybe they’d been with you for months. Maybe over a year.
And then one day, they’re gone too.
That one stings differently. And I think the reason it stings is that we’re telling ourselves the wrong story about why it happens.
Here’s a question for you.
Do you remember a TV show you were completely obsessed with as a kid?
I mean really obsessed. You knew the release schedule of every episode by heart. You knew the characters’ full names, their backstories, their catchphrases.
You’d have arguments with friends about which character was secretly the best one. If you’d missed an episode, it felt like a genuine crisis.
Now — what about today? Could you even tell me the main character’s name?
For most of us, honestly, no.
And here’s the thing worth sitting with: it’s not because the show got worse. The scripts didn’t suddenly go downhill. The actors didn’t lose their talent overnight. Nothing about that show betrayed you.
You just changed.
Your interests moved somewhere else. You grew into a different person, with different afternoons and different things pulling at your attention.
The show stayed exactly what it always was. It’s just that it stopped being for you anymore, not because it failed, but because you kept living.
That’s it. That’s the whole explanation. And it has nothing to do with quality.
The same thing is happening with your newsletter
People who unsubscribe from something they once loved reading are very often going through this exact process.
They’re not auditing your last twelve posts and deciding you’ve lost your edge. Most of the time, they’re not thinking about your writing at all.
They started a new job that eats their mornings. They became a parent and their reading time evaporated. They pivoted their business, or picked up a new hobby, or simply drifted, the way people naturally drift, toward different questions than the ones you’re still writing about.
None of that is a referendum on you. It’s just what happens when real humans with real, shifting lives are on the other end of your subscriber list instead of static numbers on a dashboard.
I used to take every single one personally
I’ll be honest with you about where I started, because I think it’s worth saying out loud.
In the beginning, every unsubscribe felt like a small breakup. Sometimes it felt sharper than that — like a little knife, right between the shoulder blades, from someone I thought was on my side.
I’d see the notification and immediately start interrogating myself. What did I do wrong? Was that last piece bad? Did I disappoint them somehow? Should I change my whole approach so this stops happening?
I’d genuinely spiral over people I’d never met, replaying sentences from a newsletter as if they’d personally wronged someone by not landing.
It took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize that neither of us had done anything wrong.
Not me, not them.
People grow in directions that have nothing to do with you.
Interests fade the way all interests eventually do. Life reroutes itself constantly, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of your Tuesday essay.
That’s not a flaw in your writing. That’s just what being alive, and writing to other people who are also alive, actually looks like.
So here’s what I want you to do
Don’t let a handful of unsubscribes talk you into putting the pen down.
Don’t treat each one like a personal indictment.
Don’t let the guilt creep in and start rewriting your voice, softening your opinions, or chasing some imaginary version of yourself designed to be unlosable to everyone.
You were never going to keep everyone forever. Nobody does. That was never actually the job.
The job is to keep showing up for the people who are still opening your emails — the ones who are, right now, waiting to see what you write next.
Write for them. The door’s always open for the others, whenever life brings them back around.
These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕
P.S Have you seen the new templates for Notes yet?
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Thank you for writing this! I specifically do not have this notification turned on, because I know it happens a lot. But I can see it happening in real time when numbers go down or stay the same even with new people joining. But it's all about finding the people who actually care about what I'm writing about. Some dude in his 20s probably won't give 2 shits about my journey. And that's ok! :)
Very thoughtful article