Is Substack the Media Future We Want?

A more pessimistic prediction is that the current True Fan revolution will eventually go the way of the original Web 2.0 revolution, with creators increasingly ground in the gears of monetization. The Substack of today makes it easy for a writer to charge fans for a newsletter. The Substack of tomorrow might move toward a flat-fee subscription mode... See more

The thing I didn’t understand going into it was that Substack wasn’t just about an economic trend of power flowing to individual writers thanks to the leverage technology gives them—it was about creating a morally superior playing field that could help heal our minds from the damage done by social networks. The Substack model wasn’t just a business... See more

An aggregator like Facebook or Airbnb brings all the relevant goods, services, or information that a consumer might seek into one place, and it gathers all the consumers there, too. Netflix is a one-stop shop for film and television. YouTube is a one-stop shop for user-generated video. Uber is a one-stop shop for car rides. These aggregators amass ... See more