Is Substack the Media Future We Want?

Expect enclosure; expect a few big winners; expect advertising, with all the attention-hacking that will demand. Expect, also, that writers will con­tinue to mold their work to fit Sub­stack’s par­tic­ular ecology, rather than “merely” use the tools to pursue their inde­pen­dent visions and ambitions. We learned this about plat­forms a long time ag... See more

I would wager that the most common goal of a Substack writer is to accumulate enough paid subscribers that they can quit their day job and write for themselves full time. It says as much in the Notes announcement. For any writer on here, that would obviously be great, but that’s not how social media companies set things up to work, and despite the

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