“There Has to Be a Line”: Substack’s Founders Dive Headfirst Into the Culture Wars

I suggested that Substack’s day of reckoning may still lie ahead. The bigger Substack gets, the more ideologically diverse its author pool becomes, the greater the chances for highly inflammatory, potentially harmful content.

Some users have already burned out, which raises the question of how many people with a coveted pro deal will find Substack’s grind unsustainable once they exhaust their advances. At the same time, many other writers simply won’t be able to make a living on Substack no matter how hard they try. But nevertheless, Substack’s growing cast of luminarie... See more

In its early days, Substack primarily catered to a certain set of internet-savvy writers and journalists, lured by the promise of monetizing a direct relationship with their readers. But as it morphs from a niche publishing concern into a heavyweight start-up mentioned in the same breath as Twitter and Facebook, its user base is proliferating accor... See more