Substack isn’t morally pure

It's just social media

Feb 06, 2025

A photo I took in September and promptly posted to Instagram. Photo: by me

I think the average reader of this here newsletter, Please Read Me, is not an active user of the platform it exists on. I know this because I stalk you all through my writer dashboard, see what you subscribe to, talk about it often and watch the eyes glaze over as I dive into my favorite Subtackers. But, if you are a user, if you scroll notes as often as I do, you may also face the odd moral high ground many Substackers believe they are on. Last week, as I procrastinated preparing for an interview, I lazily moved my finger up and down my mousepad, barely reading the words passing me by on my screen, until I was met with a note so out of touch I had to stop everything to write this. The note read, “hot girls delete social media apps owned by tech billionaires and go all in on Substack in 2025 🥂.”

The note that started this all. Photo: Screenshot

In 2017, when blogs were very much not cool, Substack launched. It was founded by Silicon Valley guys Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi with the simple goal that “publishers of news and similar content can be profitable through direct payments from readers.” The app lived in blissful peace for years, quietly encouraging household names to move their blogs to the new platform. Think Roxane Gay, Robert Reich, and Dan Rather.1 The goal set by Best, McKenzie, and Sethi, if you look at those three writers, has been a success.

It’s one of the reasons I joined Substack myself. In 2022, when I was in desperate need of a creative outlet, I launched Please Read Me on Substack. I knew little about the platform beyond that eventually I, just like Roxane Gay, could get paid subscribers. During my first year, I existed in a silo on Substack. I didn’t subscribe to a single other writer. I simply logged in, wrote my essays, scheduled them, and logged out. It wasn’t until April 2023 when Substack launched notes that I actually understood the breadth of the platform.

If you have yet to venture over to Substack notes, give it a try. To me, it feels like a slower Twitter (the OG one, not what’s happening now). It’s littered with musings from girls who just want to be heard, some truly cringe posts giving Substackers advice, and photo collages of fashion expert’s past week. Most of my notes go completely unnoticed. The most popular being a simple statement of how many subscribers I have. And so few of my “followers” on Notes are subscribers to Please Read Me. No, instead Notes is purely social media. It serves no other purpose beyond resharing essays, posting random thoughts, all for the simple dopamine hit of a like.

Imagine what the Substack notes community is gonna do when I hit 300 👀👀. Photo: Screenshot of my own note.

In the last year or so, Substack has officially taken off. It boasts over 20 million active monthly users2. In 2024, 3 million users paid for newsletters. And it has become even more popular since the 14 hour TikTok ban. In January, Substack announced a live video feature for creators and a creator fund aimed at moving writers and their readers, creators and their followers, to Substack. It’s the new hot social media, even though many of its users claim otherwise.

Note after note after note, Substackers share how they’ve given up “social media” and instead spend their time on Substack. As though Substack is the morally pure of the bunch. Of course, Substack is different than many other social media platforms. Most poignantly because it prioritizes long form writing instead of 140 characters. But it has the same problems as Meta, TikTok, and X.

A gorgeous quote from Arden Yum’s essay, *Am I writing like a white woman?* Photo: Screenshot.

The most prominent voices on Substack are white writers.3 The algorithm favors listicals instead of thoughtful essays.4 The easiest way to make money on the platform is to already have a giant audience. And, Chris Best, Substack CEO, wrote a piece about the fight for freedom of speech, saying, “Elon Musk has been a vocal supporter of free speech. It’s no secret that we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but he deserves a lot of credit for advancing freedom of speech on X, before it was popular and in the face of fierce criticism and opposition.”5

This is an odd take as with a quick Google search, you find most leaders in free speech think the opposite. That Musk’s takeover of Twitter has actually reduced the free speech on the platform. It makes me and many other Substackers question the very platform I write on. All this is to say is that basically….Substack has no moral authority.

Now, like I said, I love Substack. I’ve found incredible writers and thoughtful essays and new ways of looking at the world simply by scrolling. But we can’t look at this platform as if it’s holier than thou. That because it was created for writers, it’s better than the others. That because it feels reminiscent of Tumblr, it doesn’t need to be scrutinized the same way the others do. We Substack loyalists need to call it what it is - social media. Because when we name the beast, it’s easier to understand what its creators want from it. Substack is a social media platform and that’s okay. Let’s not pretend it’s something better.

If you aren’t ready to become a paid subscriber, but enjoy my work and you have the capacity to leave a tip, I’d love you forever.