In 2025, we witnessed a silent but significant overtaking: in several Western markets, Google searches for “Substack” began to cross - and in some cases surpass - those for the generic term “newsletter.” This is not a simple keyword shift; it is a cultural pattern that we have already seen repeat cyclically over the past fifteen years.
The concept of “long video” has become, in practice, YouTube. The “short video” format has crystallized into. TikTok. Streaming music, for most people, is simply Spotify.
The unwritten rule of digital is that as a format matures, a “winning” platform emerges that ends up embodying it better than the abstract concept itself. Today, exactly this is happening with newsletters: from being a generic, technical category (sending emails), they are morphing into a specific product, an identity. Today you no longer say “subscribe to my mailing list,” you say “read my Substack.”.
Substack: what is it?
The difference is not semantic, it is structural. Until yesterday, running a newsletter meant relying on providers (such as Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign) that acted as pure delivery vehicles: powerful, but isolated tools. They were closed “silos”: you had to bring in traffic from the outside, you had to convince the user to subscribe, and the content died in the inbox once read. If no one visited your site, no one would sign up. Substack turned the table by merging three souls into one body:
Web soul: Each submission is not just an email, but a post indexed on search engines, creating a historical archive (a real blog) that continues to work for you over time.
The Social Soul (Network Effect): This is the real technical revolution. Unlike traditional newsletters, Substack has an internal discovery engine. Thanks to the “Recommendations” system, an author doesn't just grow through his own effort, but is pushed by other creators who suggest him to their subscribers. You are no longer an island in the middle of the ocean, but a store on a busy street.
Soul Business: Monetization (paid subscriptions) is native, simple and one-click enabled, eliminating the need for complex plugins or cumbersome sales funnels.
Substack won because it is not just a tool, but a publishing ecosystem. It is a place where content lives, grows and is distributed organically. For the writer, it becomes simultaneously a proprietary media, a public archive, and a community.
Why should this trend be of interest to CEOs, Founders, and Senior Managers?
For those with leadership responsibilities and a reputation to manage, this scenario is not marginal. We live in the age of the “dictatorship of brevity,” where LinkedIn pushes us to synthesize complex concepts into 10-second scroll carousels and vertical videos pulverize attention. In this context, Substack becomes the only real bastion of depth.
It offers a space where to articulate thought without the tyranny of the stopwatch. It is the place to tell the “behind the scenes” story of a strategic decision, analyze a mistake or explore a market vision, focusing on continuity and authority rather than the random virality of a schizophrenic algorithm. Here you are not looking for the impulsive “like” of someone scrolling through the feed while waiting for the streetcar; you are looking for the time and attention of a reader who has consciously chosen to open the door of his or her inbox to you. It is the difference between making noise and doing personal branding of substance.
The window of opportunity: moving before the masses.
Whenever a platform consolidates, it follows a predictable parabola: at first, attention is high and competition low; then comes the masses and the background noise becomes deafening. On Substack we are still in that “golden hour” where you can define your own space with relative freedom.
Opening an editorial project now means being able to occupy a niche with authority, experimenting with formats and columns while still having room for error, and, most importantly, building a loyal readership base before content inflation saturates even this channel. It should not be seen as “the new social to be ridden” for fear of falling behind (FOMO), but as building a proprietary asset: a headquarters from which ideas and reflections can be started that only later will be fragmented and distributed on LinkedIn or other social.
Demeter cue: the asset versus the algorithm.
From our point of view, the biggest mistake you can make in 2026 is to entrust your voice exclusively to platforms that you do not control. Substack today represents the smartest tool for those who want to take their personal brand beyond the logic of “post bites.” It serves to create a reasoned archive of one's thoughts, something that remains indexed and searchable, building a direct channel with the audience without algorithmic intermediaries.
Of course, the platform alone is not a magic wand: without editorial strategy, steadfast consistency and clear positioning, it remains an empty vessel. But all indicators tell us that 2026 will be the year when Substack stops being “one of many options” and becomes, in the minds of many professionals, the natural (and necessary) home of valuable newsletters.