Is Substack Trying to Kill Itself
by tricking authors into locking articles and/or comments behind paid firewalls?
Locking comments
I have alerted at least two authors to the fact that they have locked comments on new posts. I did this by commenting on old posts, as the only way to communicate with them. These authors were not aware they had locked we free subscribers out of comments and quickly fixed the problem.
So if you are an author, check the number of comments on your recent articles. If they have dropped dramatically, you may have inadvertently locked comments.
Locking articles behind a teaser Preview
There are also increasing numbers of authors giving a small snippet of an article, enough to make us want more, and then locking the rest behind a paywall. This is reprehensible when it comes to doctors with potentially lifesaving information, who have, to date, pretended they are trying to help us save our own lives from the abhorrent state of mainstream medicine in our current world.
Some doctors put themselves behind a firewall very early in the piece, Dr Mercola and Dr Been to name just two. Sobeit. I stopped following them almost immediately. But now many other doctors are trying the same stunt, doctors I had come to rely on for information.
I have not yet had the chance to check if this is accidental or deliberate. A quick glance down my in-box yielded all of these:
The Truth Patrol (Chiropractor) (SINCE UNSUBSCRIBED)
Tess Lawrie (Doctor) (Tess Lawrie has explained that she shuts some articles for a few days then makes them all free for all - so she remains, thank goodness)
The Rebel Patient (Doctor and Patient) (SINCE UNSUBSCRIBED)
Matt Ehret's Insights (Journalist) (SINCE UNSUBSCRIBED)
Dr Philip MacMillan (Doctor) (SINCE UNSUBSCRIBED)
As representatives of two of the professions, medicine and journalism, that have sold the human race out to the highest bidder, shame on you, if you are doing it deliberately.
Shame on Substack if they have done it to you.
Substack, your business model is wrong
This business model will be the death of Substack. It makes no sense.
Work out how your readers use Substack. We use it is a newspaper that has a good collection of journalists. We read articles regularly from 20, 30, 50 authors, not for entertainment but for information, and we donate our own articles to the mix. We are not subscribing to an adored guru. We are reading short articles from multiple journalists, some of which have value and many of which do not.
I have not yet found the author who is supplying ALL my reading needs, and I will subscribe to them if/when I do. Until then I subscribe to no-one and ask for no subscriptions.
Do you want rid of this demographic - the information readers? Then you are going about it the right way. Congratulations.
We have two different conversations here.
The one that matters is how Substack has caused a problem we would like them to solve. Let's have a better array of gift and payment options so that there are other ways of expressing gratitude other than being rich (its not one coffee a day Ely, it's 30 coffees a day - which is more than my daily pension).
The other conversation results from my explosion of anger at some doctors who have placed themselves behind paid firewalls after building trust and maybe even a smidge of dependency. Their actions led to me post this in the first place. That is personal. I had an emotional shock, I felt betrayed, I looked for a solution (that Substack could implement). But I did stick the boot into those I felt betrayed by on the way. I named those that are now charging for their expertise. That's because I do feel betrayed, and I want them to know it. This is life and death for some of us. Its not a game of who is more fiscally worthy than whom. We are dying out here.
Well said. My stack will always be free. I hope one day to accept donations if people feel compelled but this isn't about me. It's about the information. That's why I publish anonymously. I understand the paid model somewhat because my professional life has been ruined over the past two years and writing is very time-consuming, taking me away from paid work. I would like to see substack have a 'donation and tips' option.