I enjoyed perusing the many Reader Comments my first article generated. The consensus view seems to be that Substack readers might have reached a “saturation” point on Substack articles. Many readers report they already subscribe to far more Substacks than they could ever read. In recent months, “Covid fatigue” might be starting to kick in at greater levels.
In a nutshell, Substack might be a victim of its own success. People were very interested in reading alternative points of view at one point, but have now apparently become over-subscribed and have curbed their enthusiasm.
Regarding this POV, I can only say this all rings true to me. However, the purpose of today and yesterday’s article is to provide possible data that something else is also at work here. Basically, it’s hard for me to believe that the core universe of Substack readers all reached a kind of tipping point pretty much at the same time …. And, pretty much, all in the last few months.
Even with many people becoming burned out on Covid topics and perhaps reducing the time they spend reading articles every day, it seems to me my new subscriber numbers wouldn’t have reversed as dramatically as they have in recent months.
After all, Substack should be adding X millions of new readers every year or month, right? We know the mainstream media is Dead Man Walking, which should be a great trend for Substack and its non-captured writers.
Some commenters noted that I might be approaching the peak of people who are interested in the topics I write about. Another point was that many articles are redundant and seem to cover the same material. This is probably true as well, but, from my perspective, I know I've barely tapped into the market for “contrarian” articles.
For example, Alex Berenson just wrote an article where he mentions his newsletter has 250,000 subscribers. I have 5,555. This means approximately 244,500 Alex Berenson readers (theoretically) could become Bill Rice, Jr. readers. If I could persuade just 10 percent of Alex’s readers to sign up for my Substack, you’d see me dancing a Little Two-Step. And a dozen famous Substack Covid writers probably have subscriber numbers of more than 100,000.
Several posters opined that they’d like more variety in their Substack content, which is music to my ears as I can easily segue into non-Covid taboo topics (and, in fact, already have with numerous articles).
This said, there’s still 50 or so Covid threads I’d like to do my part to help tie together if, for no other reason than someone needs to do this.
It also occurs to me that the Big Stories of the World probably haven’t even struck yet. Ever the contrarian, I think the people who have already discovered Substack will, largely, stick with Substack when, say, our leaders pull the trigger on digital currency or try to rig/steal another presidential election.
I don't think I'm ever going to run out of captivating and important topics to write about. What concerns me is the prospect that I might produce quality content on these subjects, articles that don’t translate into sustainable subscriber growth. Thus this series of articles.
If Substack authors don’t critically cover these topics, who will? The New York Times? And if Substack authors only get 1 subscriber for every 2,000 reads they generate, will they/we continue to produce this copy?
When they pull the trigger on CBDCs, if people are smart, they will drop Substack like a hot potato, destroy their computers, unless needed for work, and keep their heads down.
I botched one prediction (about the growth of my own Substack), but I'm sticking to my prediction that "they" ARE going to roll out those CBDCs ... and when they try to do this, the Substack army better be in full force with lots of great sergeants, lieutenants and colonels cranking out great copy to fight this.
They are probably trying to sink Substack in preparation for programs like this.
Thank you to Old Sailor for just giving our family a nice Ko-Fi gratuity. I also like the comment this subscriber passed along with his donation:
“Stay with it. There’s going to be a great deal to think and write about this year. You just can’t let the bastards get you down.”
My response:
"Thanks, Old Sailor. I agree 100 percent. The Year 2024 might be one of the most pivotal in U.S. history. It's good to be a Substack author in such times. I get why “they” might want to suppress the reach and influence of Substack’s contrarian authors."
The nice messages I get when people subscribe or leave a Ko-fi tip are always appreciated and keep my spirits from plunging too far!
I probably subscribe to ~50 Substacks. I can't pay you all. I've donated to your Ko-fi. If there was just a way to give $1 monthly I would do it. Patreon allows this. Appreciate your work, Bill!
In addition to what I posted earlier (a lot of your "reads" are from people who CANNOT subscribe because they are subscribers already), I was going to mention the obvious other possibilities, but unsurprisingly, you already wrote about:
"Covid burnout or Sustack subscription saturation "
Exactly.
You wrote an article months ago wondering whether the COVID topic had the legs to keep Substack as dynamic as it's been. And, if other topics would resonate as well. My opinion is Sort Of, and No. The trouble with the COVID topic isn't burnout (which to me means being sick of it) - those who see through it are as interested as ever. But so much has already been said. New developments are happening, but not at "warp speed", so I find myself skimming, or only partly reading articles I'd have devoured a few years ago. I'm sure others do similar. I hope you keep going though, we all do.
I'm NOT discounting the possibility of something nefarious contributing, or even as the main cause.
The reason I opened this article with an anecdote from my December 2022 article on my Substack experiences is because this shows the great optimism and enthusiasm I had about Substack and my new journalism career 15 months ago.
I was optimistic about my future as, perhaps, an influential writer who could reach many people and maybe even make a living without depending on some editor at a captured mainstream news organization having to hire me. I was also optimistic that Substack would play THE leading role in debunking all the world's many false or dubious narratives. IMO, this had to happen to basically save civilization.
Skip forward 15 months and you can tell my optimism has been throttled or revised significantly - based on my own observations and trends, as well as other anecdotes of other contrarian Substack authors.
In a nutshell, my theory is that this might be exactly the goal of our Censorship Industrial Complex and our Shadow Rulers. IMO they want to kill the optimism and hope of people like me who are trying to fight them. While Substack is still making a difference, it's not as big a difference as it could and should have been .... and this impact might be even smaller moving forward.
So my micro example and the change in my POV might be a case of "mission accomplished."
I wouldn't pay so much attention to trends. They certainly can and will be manipulated by the CIA which has billions to spend on Mockingbird ops. The whole point is to grind you and everyone else down to nothing. I never charged for my Substack posts and I never will; precisely because I know that they can yank that stream of revenue at any moment and send everything you've written down the memory hole. But what is the alternative to Substack? Sending your CV to WAPO or WSJ? Things will just keep getting worse. But that doesn't mean we should stop fighting! What is the alternative?
Might I suggest that you consider writing about what’s happening in your town and state? When I first started blogging back in 2008 (on Blogger), I was keenly interested in reading about different perspectives, mostly regarding gardening which is how I got started, but also about politics, art, education, tourism, etc. I wanted to know what other people in different places were thinking about, what their interests were. I would be interested in learning more about Troy and Alabama, their history, their people, businesses, and so forth.
I've actually thought about starting a second Substack newsletter that would just produce feature stories, history stories and some news just about Troy. I think that project has great potential and would probably produce far more paid subsribers than this site, which focusses on "big issues" and controversial issues.
In the future, I do plan to start running more articles NOT about Covid. In looking back at all 250 stories I've written, I was struck by the many stories that were on other topics ... so I've done some of what you recommended. Thanks for the suggestion and feedback. Please keep reading.
Very suspicious since the establishment is in a renewed lock-step march for ever more intense censorship and punishment. Twitter censorship back to max levels, life imprisonment for speech in Canada and power to the regime to block any website or app camouflaged as anti-ticktock legislation. They denied shadow banning existed until we learned Intel agencies have buttons to push to control everything to the finest of grains.
Bill, if the worst comes to the worst, what you have recorded is a process of investigation, observation and questioning leading to suggestions as to how the society might be improved, for the good of all. That becomes a resource for others. And your descendants will know you better.
Alternatively one might intuit that the number of individuals capable of sustaining an interest in the fate of their fellow man is in decline. That would be a worry. Polarization is occurring. Perhaps economic circumstances in North America are becoming more pressing.
There are only just so many singers that one bothers to listen to, and the more that their work becomes available to all, the fewer their numbers are likely to be. Perhaps with the numbers of subscribers that you have generated you are entering rarified territory. The music industry is a hard game. Perhaps also the business of commentary.
But we know that many successful individuals with a vested interest will stop at nothing to get their way and that controlling the flow of information is habitual.
I've personally started seeing a lot more push from SS for new authors... there is a 5 recommended reading at the bottom of a string each day and then there is the list I can scroll through at the top. And those notes that take me to links from people I know and follow. So sometimes your SS comes up, but it shows up way less frequently than it used to. I can't even find coffee & covid unless I type it in to search for it, and it won't populate the name suggestion for it until I've typed out coffe & cov ... so I have to LOOK for it if I want to read it and missed the morning push at the top of my screen. So there are a couple new feature issues, a push issue, and search issue potentially, which can call be other contributing factors.
Bill, I certainly wish I had your paid subscription and viewership rates (and income!). I'm about at half of your total subscribers but make relatively way less earnings for those I have.
It is always hard to say if there is 'shadowy' manipulation here. It is definitely present on Twitter/X.
As this platforms continues to facilitate an avenue for a plethora of truth tellers, it inherently becomes a serious target by TPTB. That being said, it can dissapear in a flash.
Prepare accordingly by having an alternate, preferably uncensorable/unattackable platform. I am currently researching these Plan B possibilities looking at platforms such as decentralised Nostr and Hive blockchain (where I use to blog).
Also, take regular backups (downloads of the spreadsheets) of your Substack subscribers (regular + paid) so you'll at least be able to reach them with your work if the plug gets pulled.
In addition, with all the censorship and "online harms" laws in the pipe, they could start coercing Substack staff to start censoring our contents or some of us altogether. I'm actually surprised there is not more of it already.
I agree, saturation is an issue, but I also agree that in today's espionage like environment where nefarious sources make it their job to take down important communication channels, it would not surprise me and even perhaps amaze me if there was not some type of plan in place to go after substack and its contributors. After all, it is pretty much the only place where people can state their opinions and feel somewhat safe, dare I even say it?! Best wishes Mr. Rice and if you find out the exact scientific cause of the change, I am interested to learn about it, but of course, would not be surprised.
Bill, if the worst comes to the worst, what you have recorded is a process of investigation, observation and questioning leading to suggestions as to how the society might be improved, for the good of all. That becomes a resource for others. And your descendants will know you better.
Alternatively one might intuit that the number of individuals capable of sustaining an interest in the fate of their fellow man is in decline. That would be a worry. Polarization is occurring. Perhaps economic circumstances in North America are becoming more pressing.
There are only just so many singers that one bothers to listen to, and the more that their work becomes available to all, the fewer their numbers are likely to be. Perhaps with the numbers of subscribers that you have generated you are entering rarified territory. The music industry is a hard game. Perhaps also the business of commentary.
But we know that many successful individuals with a vested interest will stop at nothing to get their way and that controlling the flow of information is habitual.
One thing that caught my eye - I haven't finished the article yet - is your declining reads to new subscriber ratio. Early on, you had few subscribers, the vast majority of readers were NOT subscribers. So, they COULD subscribe. Now, you have fewer reads than subscribers. I don't know how many of those counted as recent "reads" are Not subscribers, and thus COULD subscribe, but it could be very few people. I read every single one. So does my wife (same email address, different devices). Is that one read or two? In any event, it's possible, with over 4000 subscribers, and 3000 reads, not a single reader could subscribe (not likely, but I hope you see the idea).
I think the bigger issue is most "reads" are subscribers now. But it may not be insignificant that your "reads" are overcounted. For example:
If my wife and I pull up your article on the web, rather than read the email, and do it from different devices, using different public IPs because logged onto different LANs, seems like that would HAVE to count as multiple reads from the very same subscriber. Probably not a ton of that, but we have done it numerous times.
If most of your early growth was about your covid writing, I am not surprised your growth is down. People were hungry for real information then, they still believed accountability was possible. Now people are informed, and there is zero accountability. People are fatigued about that.
Dude, when half the population is indoctrinated from Leftist public schools, reading isn't their first priority, watching a video is. I love the pithy articles across the spectrum here but 81 million people voted for Biden, (ahem) - news flash, they aint reading substantive, journalism. Regardless of where it is and certainly wont pay extra for it, their cable bill is too high already.
I think you are ignoring information overload. My personal experience: I linked to a Substack writer about two years ago because the article was of interest. I subscribed. As time advanced more links, more subscriptions - most free, some paid. So the emails became more numerous. Plus, with complete distrust of MSM, I am on email lists of other web information sources. I am now at the point where I just do not have enough time to read everything. I have stopped subscribing. However I do read articles on Substack referenced elsewhere, I just don’t subscribe to their authors. As for the emails… I scan the headings and open the ones in which I am most interested. I may not be unique in this, so maybe you are being unduly pessimistic in subscriber numbers or emails opened.
Another point. Authors on Substack go into great detail. I just don’t want to, don’t have the time, to wade through it all, not least given the other stuff on my reading list. The detail is important, but a short executive summary at the start, I think, would be a good idea, then those who want to, can read the detail. It maybe such in depth accounts are putting some people off who just want to know what the salient points are.
I think you are overthinking. In most areas of life, the brand new entry is going to get more attention than the account that has been around a little while. Substack is likely saturated and the larger online community is also loaded with membership offers now. Who subscribes to 100 newspapers or has time to read them all? CoV itself is old news, autumn 2019 was along time ago to still be rehashing the drama. Yes, our governments are trying to kill us, moaning and whining about it is not going to help anyone.
Cutting Room Floor Text ....
What’s Causing this? Readers opine ….
I enjoyed perusing the many Reader Comments my first article generated. The consensus view seems to be that Substack readers might have reached a “saturation” point on Substack articles. Many readers report they already subscribe to far more Substacks than they could ever read. In recent months, “Covid fatigue” might be starting to kick in at greater levels.
In a nutshell, Substack might be a victim of its own success. People were very interested in reading alternative points of view at one point, but have now apparently become over-subscribed and have curbed their enthusiasm.
Regarding this POV, I can only say this all rings true to me. However, the purpose of today and yesterday’s article is to provide possible data that something else is also at work here. Basically, it’s hard for me to believe that the core universe of Substack readers all reached a kind of tipping point pretty much at the same time …. And, pretty much, all in the last few months.
Even with many people becoming burned out on Covid topics and perhaps reducing the time they spend reading articles every day, it seems to me my new subscriber numbers wouldn’t have reversed as dramatically as they have in recent months.
After all, Substack should be adding X millions of new readers every year or month, right? We know the mainstream media is Dead Man Walking, which should be a great trend for Substack and its non-captured writers.
Some commenters noted that I might be approaching the peak of people who are interested in the topics I write about. Another point was that many articles are redundant and seem to cover the same material. This is probably true as well, but, from my perspective, I know I've barely tapped into the market for “contrarian” articles.
For example, Alex Berenson just wrote an article where he mentions his newsletter has 250,000 subscribers. I have 5,555. This means approximately 244,500 Alex Berenson readers (theoretically) could become Bill Rice, Jr. readers. If I could persuade just 10 percent of Alex’s readers to sign up for my Substack, you’d see me dancing a Little Two-Step. And a dozen famous Substack Covid writers probably have subscriber numbers of more than 100,000.
Several posters opined that they’d like more variety in their Substack content, which is music to my ears as I can easily segue into non-Covid taboo topics (and, in fact, already have with numerous articles).
This said, there’s still 50 or so Covid threads I’d like to do my part to help tie together if, for no other reason than someone needs to do this.
It also occurs to me that the Big Stories of the World probably haven’t even struck yet. Ever the contrarian, I think the people who have already discovered Substack will, largely, stick with Substack when, say, our leaders pull the trigger on digital currency or try to rig/steal another presidential election.
I don't think I'm ever going to run out of captivating and important topics to write about. What concerns me is the prospect that I might produce quality content on these subjects, articles that don’t translate into sustainable subscriber growth. Thus this series of articles.
If Substack authors don’t critically cover these topics, who will? The New York Times? And if Substack authors only get 1 subscriber for every 2,000 reads they generate, will they/we continue to produce this copy?
I don't know, but probably not.
When they pull the trigger on CBDCs, if people are smart, they will drop Substack like a hot potato, destroy their computers, unless needed for work, and keep their heads down.
I botched one prediction (about the growth of my own Substack), but I'm sticking to my prediction that "they" ARE going to roll out those CBDCs ... and when they try to do this, the Substack army better be in full force with lots of great sergeants, lieutenants and colonels cranking out great copy to fight this.
They are probably trying to sink Substack in preparation for programs like this.
Oh yeah, they will go with the CBDCs, but we need to be fighting it now, NOT after it's too late, because they'll have already won.
This is precisely my thinking on this.
You will own nothing by 2030 and be happy little cyborg,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivDSLsSQl7Y
yup
Thank you to Old Sailor for just giving our family a nice Ko-Fi gratuity. I also like the comment this subscriber passed along with his donation:
“Stay with it. There’s going to be a great deal to think and write about this year. You just can’t let the bastards get you down.”
My response:
"Thanks, Old Sailor. I agree 100 percent. The Year 2024 might be one of the most pivotal in U.S. history. It's good to be a Substack author in such times. I get why “they” might want to suppress the reach and influence of Substack’s contrarian authors."
The nice messages I get when people subscribe or leave a Ko-fi tip are always appreciated and keep my spirits from plunging too far!
I probably subscribe to ~50 Substacks. I can't pay you all. I've donated to your Ko-fi. If there was just a way to give $1 monthly I would do it. Patreon allows this. Appreciate your work, Bill!
In addition to what I posted earlier (a lot of your "reads" are from people who CANNOT subscribe because they are subscribers already), I was going to mention the obvious other possibilities, but unsurprisingly, you already wrote about:
"Covid burnout or Sustack subscription saturation "
Exactly.
You wrote an article months ago wondering whether the COVID topic had the legs to keep Substack as dynamic as it's been. And, if other topics would resonate as well. My opinion is Sort Of, and No. The trouble with the COVID topic isn't burnout (which to me means being sick of it) - those who see through it are as interested as ever. But so much has already been said. New developments are happening, but not at "warp speed", so I find myself skimming, or only partly reading articles I'd have devoured a few years ago. I'm sure others do similar. I hope you keep going though, we all do.
I'm NOT discounting the possibility of something nefarious contributing, or even as the main cause.
The reason I opened this article with an anecdote from my December 2022 article on my Substack experiences is because this shows the great optimism and enthusiasm I had about Substack and my new journalism career 15 months ago.
I was optimistic about my future as, perhaps, an influential writer who could reach many people and maybe even make a living without depending on some editor at a captured mainstream news organization having to hire me. I was also optimistic that Substack would play THE leading role in debunking all the world's many false or dubious narratives. IMO, this had to happen to basically save civilization.
Skip forward 15 months and you can tell my optimism has been throttled or revised significantly - based on my own observations and trends, as well as other anecdotes of other contrarian Substack authors.
In a nutshell, my theory is that this might be exactly the goal of our Censorship Industrial Complex and our Shadow Rulers. IMO they want to kill the optimism and hope of people like me who are trying to fight them. While Substack is still making a difference, it's not as big a difference as it could and should have been .... and this impact might be even smaller moving forward.
So my micro example and the change in my POV might be a case of "mission accomplished."
I wouldn't pay so much attention to trends. They certainly can and will be manipulated by the CIA which has billions to spend on Mockingbird ops. The whole point is to grind you and everyone else down to nothing. I never charged for my Substack posts and I never will; precisely because I know that they can yank that stream of revenue at any moment and send everything you've written down the memory hole. But what is the alternative to Substack? Sending your CV to WAPO or WSJ? Things will just keep getting worse. But that doesn't mean we should stop fighting! What is the alternative?
Might I suggest that you consider writing about what’s happening in your town and state? When I first started blogging back in 2008 (on Blogger), I was keenly interested in reading about different perspectives, mostly regarding gardening which is how I got started, but also about politics, art, education, tourism, etc. I wanted to know what other people in different places were thinking about, what their interests were. I would be interested in learning more about Troy and Alabama, their history, their people, businesses, and so forth.
I've actually thought about starting a second Substack newsletter that would just produce feature stories, history stories and some news just about Troy. I think that project has great potential and would probably produce far more paid subsribers than this site, which focusses on "big issues" and controversial issues.
In the future, I do plan to start running more articles NOT about Covid. In looking back at all 250 stories I've written, I was struck by the many stories that were on other topics ... so I've done some of what you recommended. Thanks for the suggestion and feedback. Please keep reading.
Very suspicious since the establishment is in a renewed lock-step march for ever more intense censorship and punishment. Twitter censorship back to max levels, life imprisonment for speech in Canada and power to the regime to block any website or app camouflaged as anti-ticktock legislation. They denied shadow banning existed until we learned Intel agencies have buttons to push to control everything to the finest of grains.
I agree, Michael. This "shadow-banning" is probably endemic, perhaps even on Substack?
Bill, if the worst comes to the worst, what you have recorded is a process of investigation, observation and questioning leading to suggestions as to how the society might be improved, for the good of all. That becomes a resource for others. And your descendants will know you better.
Alternatively one might intuit that the number of individuals capable of sustaining an interest in the fate of their fellow man is in decline. That would be a worry. Polarization is occurring. Perhaps economic circumstances in North America are becoming more pressing.
There are only just so many singers that one bothers to listen to, and the more that their work becomes available to all, the fewer their numbers are likely to be. Perhaps with the numbers of subscribers that you have generated you are entering rarified territory. The music industry is a hard game. Perhaps also the business of commentary.
But we know that many successful individuals with a vested interest will stop at nothing to get their way and that controlling the flow of information is habitual.
Sorry to say, Substack is effectively Enemy/Controlled Territory and has long been intended as such.
Keep going, Bill.
I've personally started seeing a lot more push from SS for new authors... there is a 5 recommended reading at the bottom of a string each day and then there is the list I can scroll through at the top. And those notes that take me to links from people I know and follow. So sometimes your SS comes up, but it shows up way less frequently than it used to. I can't even find coffee & covid unless I type it in to search for it, and it won't populate the name suggestion for it until I've typed out coffe & cov ... so I have to LOOK for it if I want to read it and missed the morning push at the top of my screen. So there are a couple new feature issues, a push issue, and search issue potentially, which can call be other contributing factors.
Maybe something is wrong with your notifications. I always get notified when it is posted. A few times it has been posted later than the usual 8:30.
Bill, I certainly wish I had your paid subscription and viewership rates (and income!). I'm about at half of your total subscribers but make relatively way less earnings for those I have.
It is always hard to say if there is 'shadowy' manipulation here. It is definitely present on Twitter/X.
As this platforms continues to facilitate an avenue for a plethora of truth tellers, it inherently becomes a serious target by TPTB. That being said, it can dissapear in a flash.
Prepare accordingly by having an alternate, preferably uncensorable/unattackable platform. I am currently researching these Plan B possibilities looking at platforms such as decentralised Nostr and Hive blockchain (where I use to blog).
Also, take regular backups (downloads of the spreadsheets) of your Substack subscribers (regular + paid) so you'll at least be able to reach them with your work if the plug gets pulled.
In addition, with all the censorship and "online harms" laws in the pipe, they could start coercing Substack staff to start censoring our contents or some of us altogether. I'm actually surprised there is not more of it already.
Better to prepare in advance.
Food for thought.
I agree, saturation is an issue, but I also agree that in today's espionage like environment where nefarious sources make it their job to take down important communication channels, it would not surprise me and even perhaps amaze me if there was not some type of plan in place to go after substack and its contributors. After all, it is pretty much the only place where people can state their opinions and feel somewhat safe, dare I even say it?! Best wishes Mr. Rice and if you find out the exact scientific cause of the change, I am interested to learn about it, but of course, would not be surprised.
Bill, if the worst comes to the worst, what you have recorded is a process of investigation, observation and questioning leading to suggestions as to how the society might be improved, for the good of all. That becomes a resource for others. And your descendants will know you better.
Alternatively one might intuit that the number of individuals capable of sustaining an interest in the fate of their fellow man is in decline. That would be a worry. Polarization is occurring. Perhaps economic circumstances in North America are becoming more pressing.
There are only just so many singers that one bothers to listen to, and the more that their work becomes available to all, the fewer their numbers are likely to be. Perhaps with the numbers of subscribers that you have generated you are entering rarified territory. The music industry is a hard game. Perhaps also the business of commentary.
But we know that many successful individuals with a vested interest will stop at nothing to get their way and that controlling the flow of information is habitual.
One thing that caught my eye - I haven't finished the article yet - is your declining reads to new subscriber ratio. Early on, you had few subscribers, the vast majority of readers were NOT subscribers. So, they COULD subscribe. Now, you have fewer reads than subscribers. I don't know how many of those counted as recent "reads" are Not subscribers, and thus COULD subscribe, but it could be very few people. I read every single one. So does my wife (same email address, different devices). Is that one read or two? In any event, it's possible, with over 4000 subscribers, and 3000 reads, not a single reader could subscribe (not likely, but I hope you see the idea).
I think the bigger issue is most "reads" are subscribers now. But it may not be insignificant that your "reads" are overcounted. For example:
If my wife and I pull up your article on the web, rather than read the email, and do it from different devices, using different public IPs because logged onto different LANs, seems like that would HAVE to count as multiple reads from the very same subscriber. Probably not a ton of that, but we have done it numerous times.
If most of your early growth was about your covid writing, I am not surprised your growth is down. People were hungry for real information then, they still believed accountability was possible. Now people are informed, and there is zero accountability. People are fatigued about that.
Dude, when half the population is indoctrinated from Leftist public schools, reading isn't their first priority, watching a video is. I love the pithy articles across the spectrum here but 81 million people voted for Biden, (ahem) - news flash, they aint reading substantive, journalism. Regardless of where it is and certainly wont pay extra for it, their cable bill is too high already.
I think you are ignoring information overload. My personal experience: I linked to a Substack writer about two years ago because the article was of interest. I subscribed. As time advanced more links, more subscriptions - most free, some paid. So the emails became more numerous. Plus, with complete distrust of MSM, I am on email lists of other web information sources. I am now at the point where I just do not have enough time to read everything. I have stopped subscribing. However I do read articles on Substack referenced elsewhere, I just don’t subscribe to their authors. As for the emails… I scan the headings and open the ones in which I am most interested. I may not be unique in this, so maybe you are being unduly pessimistic in subscriber numbers or emails opened.
Another point. Authors on Substack go into great detail. I just don’t want to, don’t have the time, to wade through it all, not least given the other stuff on my reading list. The detail is important, but a short executive summary at the start, I think, would be a good idea, then those who want to, can read the detail. It maybe such in depth accounts are putting some people off who just want to know what the salient points are.
I think you are overthinking. In most areas of life, the brand new entry is going to get more attention than the account that has been around a little while. Substack is likely saturated and the larger online community is also loaded with membership offers now. Who subscribes to 100 newspapers or has time to read them all? CoV itself is old news, autumn 2019 was along time ago to still be rehashing the drama. Yes, our governments are trying to kill us, moaning and whining about it is not going to help anyone.