I've heard people reference this platform before, but I have no idea what it is. I just looked at the substack.com, and I feel like I still don't understand it.

Is it a blogging platform mixed with a newsletter tool?

Either I missed it entirely, or the landing page assumes I know what it is before I get there.

Even the about page is buried in "link soup" at the bottom of the page and just leads to hand waving and eventually a short story about something in 1833.

I don't know what needs to be built, but I do know that I don't know what this is.

From the first paragraph on the linked jobs page:

>We make it simple for writers to publish to an email list that they own, get discovered on the web, and charge for subscriptions.

Sounds to me like a blogging and newsletter platform with subscription fees paid to writers

I get the impression that the SEO on substack needs working on - sometimes when I google someone (e.g. 'Scott Alexander' or 'Matt Yglesias') their old pages with their old writing will come up before their substack page.

Yeah we for sure need to improve in that department