Fashion Month, unstacked

In its variety, the Substack corpus resembles the blogosphere. It is produced by a mix of career journalists, bloggers, specialists, novelists, hobbyists, dabblers, and white-collar professionals looking to plump up their personal brands. The company has tried to recruit high-profile writers, offering (to a select few) health-care stipends, design ... See more

But whether Substack is good for writers is one question; another is whether a world in which subscription newsletters rival magazines and newspapers is a world that people want.

Top substack writers all have a clear focus. The Dispatch writes about politics, Matt Stoller writes about monopolies, Bill Bishop covers China.