Craptasticism expert - Bart Simpson
Linda:
I have noticed many things on Substack that have sort of taken from away the original-free-and-open-marketplace approach that this platform started with. All the video and podcast content, all the cute and sometimes obnoxious emojis hung on comments and even some abusive comments that I have received on Substack notes. A lot of that stuff has the tired and retreaded feel of Facebook and X. That is I used to refer to generically as FaceTwit. Now that Twitter it is X, in my own way of mocking SpaceX to some extent, I call Substack by the name Face-X.
If your goal is to expose writers (inexperienced and experienced) to this platform and allow them to be paid as writers, why can you not follow the tried-and-true method of the old drugstores and grocery counters, before media became bastardized by cable and commoditized by the internet? Of course, since that time, corporatism and fascism has prevented many sides of media from being discussed through forced government and corporate censorship in the mane of “political correctness”.
Why can’t anyone who wants to sell their content have an option of selling their content one-Substack-post-at-a-time, like a single magazine you could usually find on any magazine rack in America 60 years ago? That would allow anyone using the Substack app to try the content, and then, if they really like it, as time goes on, they could fully subscribe for several months.
I could literally bankrupt myself easily if I had to subscribe fully to every Substack account there is out here. I do pay the full annual price for Doomberg, but I find his Substack at the basic level essential to my understanding of current energy issues, which I used to work in actively, and will continue investing in as time goes on. That ain’t cheap by the way, but I find it is worth it.
If I did that with everyone, I would probably have a $10,000 a month Substack bill to deal with every month. That is both unrealistic and pretty idiotic at the same time. When I had a BizRadioNetwork audience 15 years ago (which I ran, insanely, for free), I had a blog with 250,000 followers and readers. I could have ginned that engine up for nice revenue, but I did not. Now, I can barely scape up an audience, though I do not write with the persistence I once did.
It’s easy to drowned in the wake of folks like Doomberg, Seymour Hersh, and others out here. A little guy is going to get squeezed out of the “exposure” market, and all of a sudden Substack in nothing but a “hit and click” experience like every other staid and lame social media platform worldwide.
Do you want to really innovate? Create a “one Substack-as-you-go” pay system for writers on this platform. You could have a minimum post requirement of some kind to keep the complexity down, but I think it would give aspiring writers a real chance.
As Homer Simpson might say, “We have enough craptastic social media platforms now. Why not be different?” Crap-tasti-cism is the mainstay of Facebook, X, Instagram, Twitch, Pinterest, Reddit and other platforms.
Stand out for once. Be different. Find a way to help the little guy get big. It could happen if you let it.
That is the end of my rant. All the best!
Sincerely,
David Buffalo
The Buffalo Trader
Brilliant idea! Let people pay by the article if they like...common sense and would help writers. Probably produce better content too!
Agree, great idea.