Why Does It Always End Like This?

I'm a writer. Well, I like to write at least. You can decide whether I'm any good at it or not.

For a writer, when Substack launched, back in 2017, it was amazing. It was genuinely groundbreaking and idealistic.

(and for those who don't know, Substack is a platform for writers to be able to earn from their writing.)

There was no feed. No algorithmic nonsense. No begging for likes. No dancing for the machine. Just writers and readers, finding each other.

It felt almost old-fashioned.

And that was the point.

That was only 9 years ago. It's only taken 9 years for the founders to completely subvert their principles and embrace chasing money at all costs.

If you've ever heard the term 'enshittification' and wondered what that meant, then stay tuned. I'm going to chart the moral decline of good people and ask the question:

If it happened to them, how can anyone resist?

The Dream Begins...

Substack arrived in 2017 with a simple promise: writers should be able to write, readers should be able to read, and nobody should have to wedge themselves between the two waving an advert for meal kits or crypto wallets.

The founders were explicit about this. In their launch essay, Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie wrote that “what you read matters” and argued that journalism did not have to be funded by advertising. Their stated goal was wonderfully plain:

“Make it simple to start a publication that makes money from subscriptions."

That was the dream.

A better internet for writers.
A better internet for readers.
A better internet, full stop.

And now?

Substack has a feed. It has Notes (a kind of shortform Twitter thing). It has video. It has livestreams. It has algorithms. It has creator growth advice. It has people writing posts about how to grow on Substack by writing posts about growing on Substack.

And as of this month, it now has "native sponsorships".

Which is another way of saying: adverts.

The Original Sin

The first Substack pitch was built around the idea that the internet broke media because advertising broke the incentives.

When you make money by harvesting attention, attention becomes the product. So it doesn't matter if what you write is true (or even good). As long as it gets attention.

And what happens is you get clickbait. You get articles designed to provoke outrage. You get fucking listicles.

Substack saw this clearly. In 2019, after raising money from Andreessen Horowitz, the company wrote that modern media had “warped incentives” and that writers were being forced to compete for attention. They said writers were treated like “content gatherers” feeding a social media machine. They also made one very clear promise:

“We will never build ad tech into Substack.”

This was literally the moral foundation of the whole thing.

Substack wasn’t just selling software. It was selling an escape from the algorithm.

Escape from the pressure to become a little media brand, forever performing in public.

Writers came because they wanted to own their audience. Readers came because they wanted something calmer.

A newsletter was meant to be a relationship.

Then Came The Feed

The first big shift was Notes.

In 2023, Substack launched Notes, describing it as a way for writing, ideas, and discussion to move through the network. The founders said Notes would help writers get discovered and build growth, while insisting it would not feel like the social media we already knew. They also repeated the old mantra: ad-based feeds live on attention, while Substack’s network was built on paid subscriptions.

And yes, technically, they were right.

Notes is not Twitter.

It is orange. Twitter is blue. Lol.

Oh and the buttons are nicer and everyone says “publication” instead of “account.”

At first, I understood the logic. Discovery is hard. Writers need readers. Readers need ways to find writers. Email is brilliant for deepening a relationship, but terrible for creating one from scratch.

So Substack built a social layer.

But once you build a social layer, you inherit social incentives.

The moment you create a feed, people start performing for it. The moment you create engagement metrics, people start chasing them. The moment you create discovery, people start optimising for discoverability.

The writing becomes the second job.

The first job becomes being seen.

“I Just Want To Write And Read In Peace”

You can see the shift in how writers talk about Substack now.

On Reddit, one user asked how essay writers are supposed to handle discovery “without turning my work into something else.” That line gets right to the centre of it. The writer is comfortable writing and publishing. What they are struggling with is the expectation that growth requires becoming a content creator.

Another described Substack Notes as producing “the stimulation, the cravings for engagement” they associated with Twitter or Instagram, adding: “I just want to write and read in peace.”

People joined Substack to avoid the internet’s worst habits, then found those same habits waiting for them inside the app.

And there are endless posts asking the same basic question in different forms:

How do I get discovered?
Is cold-posting just shouting into the void?
Do I need to comment constantly?
Do I need to post Notes?

Do I need to become the thing I came here to avoid?

The incentives are now totally screwed.

The Writer Becomes The Growth Department

In the beginning, Substack solved payments and publishing. Then it added network effects. Also useful.

Then it added a feed.

Then the feed became the place where visibility happens.

Then visibility became the thing writers have to chase.

And suddenly the writer who wanted to write one excellent essay a week is now wondering whether they need to post three Notes a day about the process of writing the essay.

This is how the internet eats itself.

Every platform begins by promising to remove friction.

Then it becomes the friction.

And Now Come The Ads

Substack will argue, reasonably, that its new sponsorship programme is not the same as old-school advertising.

Chris Best’s announcement says the company is launching the next phase of native sponsorships with brands including Uber, Balenciaga, T-Mobile, Polymarket, Whatnot, Granola, and Yahoo Scout. He says these are not “arbitrarily inserted ads” but direct partnerships where creators choose who they work with and keep editorial independence.

Fine.

That sounds better than programmatic slop.

It probably will be better than programmatic slop.

But that is an incredibly low bar.

Substack’s own support page now explains Creator Kits, which are media kits designed to attract brand partners through the native sponsorships programme. These kits show subscriber counts, open rates, active readers, audience interests, sponsorship formats, and minimum spend. They are currently available to Bestsellers or publications with at least 100 paid subscribers.

Again, this may help writers make money.

I’m not against writers making money.

Writers should make money. Lots of it. Ideally without having to become unpaid interns for their own personal marketing departments.

But look at the direction of travel.

The platform that once said it would not accommodate ads now has sponsorship infrastructure.

The platform that said the answer was direct payment now helps creators package audience demographics for brands.

The platform that said writers should not have to play attention games now tells them how to build influence through feeds, algorithms, and engagement.

The Platform Always Wins

This is the enshittification of the internet.

Cory Doctorow coined it to describe how platforms start out good for users, then become good for business customers, then become good mainly for themselves.

Everything starts human.

Then it becomes a system.

Then the system needs growth.

Then growth needs engagement.

Then engagement needs incentives.

Then incentives reshape behaviour.

Then everyone looks around and says: why does this feel exactly like the place we left?

Because it is.

Different interface. Same machine.

We Were Promised A Desk

What writers wanted was a desk.

A calm place to think.

What we're getting is a mall.

There’s a food court. A cinema. Pop-up shops. Sponsored experiences. Influencers wandering around with tote bags. A central plaza where everyone shouts short thoughts at each other. A helpful dashboard telling you which shop windows converted best.

And somewhere, tucked away in the back, there is still a desk.

You can still write at it.

But now you have to walk through the mall to get there.

The Question For Writers

I don’t think the answer is to leave Substack immediately. That would be too neat. And probably impractical.

But I do think we need yet another new platform. Built for writers and readers who give a shit. We need to build Substack as it was at the start. And with AI coding, that actually isn't too difficult these days.

The question then becomes how do we stop any new platform following the Substack playbook. How do we stop the slow descent into the shit?

Is the answer that we need some decent human beings starting new businesses?

I think maybe it is.

I think perhaps that the great AI revolution is that it will enable decent human beings to build things with love and care and compassion that they wouldn't have been able to only 3 short years ago.

And the tech bro arseholes that have (to date) built the internet but are, deep down, really horrible human beings will slowly die out as they realise they are an anaethema to everything that most people want in the world.

So this week I am going to write something that makes me feel something. Something that you will want to wake up to in your inbox. Something that makes you nod your head and think, thank god there are still some decent people in this world.

At least I'll try.

Until next time,

Jon "Trying to Save the Internet" Kaye

Choosing to live more deliberately

P.S.

Can conversations change your mood? Curious?