Dear Substack:
I am a voracious reader of all kinds of content, financial, social, engineering, informative, and political. If I had the budget, I could probably spend $5,000 a month or more to consume it. As it is now, I cannot quite do that.
Many of the finest contributors on this platform have very high subscription hurdles to overcome and with just cause. Having been an active writer myself at one time, I would do a ton of research, itemize it, and then present it in a blog or bulletin board fashion, linking it into my posts in what I call “rich media”. I like people to read my sources and get them to consider a point of view or perspective that I have. I don’t want people to agree with me; I want people to think.
I wouldn’t mind investing $50 to $100 a month if I could select from 5 to 7 articles a month from some of the subscription-based authors on particular topics I am interested in, and have those authors get paid that fraction to read the article. If that inconveniences the author, you might only be able to pick one or two a year from their posts, but still have the option of switching the list of authors every couple of months so that if someone wanted to subscribe to a given author at the full price, they could.
There might be some minor technical difficulty within the platform database that would not allow such an idea to become reality, but if there is not, I think it might be a good idea to try at some point. New or less established authors would get exposure, and the entire community would benefit from the smorgasbord of ideas, paying each author for the sample.
What do you think about that idea? Let us all know. Thanks!