Why People Subscribe To You
Not every subscriber is a reader. Here's how to tell the difference
Most of your subscribers will never read a single line of what you write.
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I know that sounds pretty harsh, but since we talked about unsubscribes last time, I think it’s only fair to flip the coin and see what’s actually on the other side.
Because if you don’t understand why people click the “Subscribe” button in the first place, you’ll never understand why they disappear later and more importantly, you’ll never figure out who actually deserves your attention.
Let’s start with the most obvious group—the one we all know and secretly look down on a little.
The “Sub for Sub” crowd.
Those posts on Notes that go something like this: Follow me, and I’ll follow you back—let’s grow together.
At first glance, it seems like a friendly gesture, almost like mutual support among fellow writers.
In reality, it’s pure hot air.
These people don’t come to you for your words.
They don’t even know what your words are. They don’t read anything you post, they don’t wait for your next email, they don’t comment, they don’t share with a friend something they’ve read from you—because they’ve never read anything you’ve written.
They’re simply exchanging one number for another. And the moment that exchange stops benefiting them, they leave just as quietly as they came.
I don’t want to make them sound like bad people, because they aren’t bad people—they’re just empty numbers in the context of your audience. They look like growth, but they don’t bring anything real.
Then comes the second group, a little more innocent at first glance.
Impulsive Subscribers
These are the people who scroll through Notes or their main feed, stumble upon something you’ve posted by chance, get hooked by a sentence for a second, and impulsively click “Subscribe” without even knowing who’s behind it.
There’s nothing wrong with that, honestly—that’s how a lot of great connections happen in real life, too. The problem is that after a few days, when they start receiving your actual emails, they realize that this isn’t exactly the content they were expecting, or it’s just not the right time for them, and they unsubscribe.
This is absolutely normal, and you shouldn’t take it as a failure. They were never your target audience to begin with. They just happened to cross your path for a moment.
There’s also a third group worth mentioning separately because it’s a bit more cunning than the first two.
But first, look for your Free Product here ❤️
People who follow you not because of you, but because they expect you to return the favor.
They come with a specific expectation in mind—I followed you, now it’s your turn.
Again, we shouldn’t judge them too harshly for this; we all understand the logic of exchanging favors.
But here, too, the relationship isn’t built on your content, but on something entirely unrelated to it.
And that brings us to the only group that really matters.
The Real Deal Subscribers
These are the people who stumble upon something you’ve created—either by chance or because someone forwarded it to them—and it touches them in a way they didn’t expect.
It might have solved a problem they’d been carrying around for weeks. It might have helped them see something familiar from a new perspective.
It might simply have given them a little hope on a day when they didn’t have much of it.
These people don’t click “Subscribe” with a calculator in hand. They click it because they want more. They want to hear what you have to say next time.
These are the people who make up your true audience.
They read your emails all the way through, not just the first two lines. They reply to you, sometimes with something very personal that makes you stop for a moment and reflect. They comment on your posts.
They forward your text to a friend with the words, “Check this out—I think you’ll find it helpful.” They come back on their own, without waiting for a reminder. They aren’t just adding a number to your spreadsheet.
They are the real impact your words have on the world, however big or small that may be.
I’ll tell you something from my own experience,
because I think almost everyone who writes here goes through the same phase.
At first, I checked my subscriber count literally every day, sometimes several times a day. Every new number made me feel like I’d accomplished something, like I was one step closer to some invisible goal.
The problem was that that number didn’t tell me anything meaningful.
You can have thousands of subscribers and almost none of them open your emails.
And you can have a very small group of people who eagerly await each of your posts, respond to you, debate with you, and go back to read your old posts again.
The difference between these two situations is enormous, even when the numbers on paper suggest the opposite.
That’s why I think the myth we need to debunk is precisely this one—that success on Substack is measured by the number of subscribers.
It’s not measured by that.
It’s measured by the trust that the people who are still reading have placed in you.
By engagement, not volume.
Hollow numbers look good in the stats, but they mean nothing when you sit down to write your next piece.
So how do you find your true readers, instead of just racking up random subscribers?
Not with “Sub for Sub,” not by chasing numbers, not with growth hacks that sound good for a week and then fizzle out.
You find them by writing honestly, even when it’s easier to gloss over things. By being consistent, even in the weeks when inspiration doesn’t come on its own.
By solving real problems for real people, rather than writing just to fill your calendar with posts. And by creating something that people want to share with a friend on their own, without you having to ask them to.
Stop chasing numbers. Start looking for people.
Ten genuine readers who are waiting for you are worth more than a thousand random names on a list that no one ever opens.
And the next time you see a new subscription notification, don’t ask yourself how many you have in total—ask yourself if this person will stick around long enough to figure out who you really are.
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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Excellent article as always. When I used to write on Medium, I hated the sub-for-sub culture that was so dominant there. Because most of the writing was BAD. So, when I came here, I was very careful not to get involved with too much of that. I'm sure that most of the people I've lost were in that category since a lot was before I hit 100 subs.
But I've been guilty of that impulse subscribe as well. I'm only just now going through my subscriptions to make sure that I actually want to receive the information. I'm becoming more liberal with the 'follow' button instead. Then, I can actually see if that content is my thing over the longer term.
I really enjoyed this. It's such an important reminder that there's a big difference between collecting subscribers and building relationships. I think every writer reaches a point where they realize that a handful of readers who genuinely care, reply, and keep coming back are worth far more than impressive numbers on a dashboard. Thank you for sharing this perspective.