Choosing Paid Substacks

Creative, learned people abound.  At one time, they competed with each other for space in publications.  Many make their living from what they write, so the sponsoring magazine either hired them on a salary or paid them by the piece.  Advertising subsidized the publisher who saw content as some blend of mission, resource, and expense.  A consumer like me would either subscribe to the publication for an annual fee or head over to the library's magazine section to browse their collection.  

Electronic distribution of what is basically intellectual property has upended this tradition, both for creators and for consumers.  An era not very long ago attracted bloggers, mostly amateurs like me, who got intrinsic satisfaction from what we could put out for readers, but generated no money.  The pros, people of real expertise either as journalists covering a specific area, professional writers, or think tank experts not only needed a forum but a means of generating revenue from their knowledge.  Thus, we now have Substack, a forum where people or groups become entrepreneurs, selling their own subscriptions to their content.  As much as I like reading many of these, the market seems flooded.  With an annual subscription to each running about $80, a certain amount of selectivity is needed.  That sum not only offers content but the ability to interact as a reader.  Many have become echo chambers, pitching ideologies mostly parallel to what the sponsor promotes.  Those subscriptions might be better spent on authors whose views expand your own rather than validating personal beliefs.  

Many, if not most, of the popular authors have kept their salaried positions.  I need access to very few, if any.  Their Substack sites mostly do not have exclusivity of what they put forth to the public.  So what the subscriber seems to be purchasing is membership in a community as much as enlightenment from the sponsor's ideas.

At present, I pay for one, $5/month, for which I get two articles each week and a chance to express myself.  I think I would be willing to purchase one more at a similar or slightly higher price.  I've already let one subscription lapse, one of the most widely subscribed to Substacks.  What was promoted as independent journalism became one more echo chamber.  With the many out there, I still look at the selection much the way I would in a public library's magazine nook.  Take a few issues, read them.  Subscribe to two, both with multiple contributors.  While the interactive feature attracts me, and has added immensely to the one subscription that I have, I rarely read other readers' thoughts.  Perhaps I've become jaded by open cesspools like Twitter.  There is much to be said for having an editor to screen what others get to read.  In another era, not too long ago, many newspapers had open comment forums, mostly now eliminated by experienced editors opting to have no comments rather than unscreened toxic ones.

Most internet forums have undergone some revisions in the two decades that everyone has had access to unlimited platforms.  Some would classify as enhancements, others as descents.  I would predict that as much as learned people should be able to make a few shekels distributing their thoughts, the price requires considerable selectivity for who to read regularly.  I'm not yet ready to move beyond the single subscription that I have now.