Substack Is So Inauthentic
I moved to Substack a few months ago as I do honestly like the simplicity of the web publications (not so much the app versions), particularly for fiction. I haven't even started posting properly yet, but it looks as though gaining (actual, organic, genuine) readers seems nigh impossible without gaming the system.
I've tried to engage on Notes and it's... I don't know. It's hard to explain my issue with it. Plastic is the word I'd use to describe it. I think the issue is that there are genuinely few readers on there, so it just comes across as a giant pyramid scheme. Not financially, obviously. There doesn't seem to be enough money coming in on the platform for that. But in terms of the attention economy that's on there, writers are all clambering over one another for a crumb of attention.
I will admit, the algorithm on Substack seems dreadful. Trying to find things you're actually interested in at first is a nightmare. But when you have hundreds of Notes that have some version of "Connect me with people who like X", when they already have hundreds of subscribers, hundreds of likes and multiple comments from other writers spamming their work below, it just comes across as being disingenuous to the max.
Everyone's so nice on Substack... because everyone is relying on everyone else for exposure.
How does anyone have the time to actually write if you're expected to read and comment on every else's work? Don't get me wrong, I don't expect instant success, but time is finite. Between work and looking after the home and the family, I barely have an hour at the end of the day to put into writing. And yet to be successful, it seems you need to spend at least twice that talking to other writers, who are all in the same boat. No wonder AI writing is getting so prevalent, it's the only way people have the time to push things out!
This isn't anything new, but I think the paid model that Substack relies on actually makes this toxic positivity much worse. If Substack actually wants to make more money, surely there has to be better ways of connecting writers with potential readers than forcing users to constantly spam their work in the hopes of being picked up by the algorithm!