In the 1970s while in my twenties I read Fortune magazine from cover to cover. I followed the Fortune 500, an annual list of the largest corporations. I loved business stories.
In the 1980s I read and collected dozens of annual reports of public corporations. Being an accountant, I understood the financial statements, including the footnotes. It was a very good way to learn a lot about business.
In the 1990s I taught Strategic Management at SAIT, a community college in Calgary, for two years. As part of the course, students were required to do case studies on local businesses which were presented in class. I gained significant insight into the Calgary business scene and beyond.
But during a midlife transition, my values changed and I lost interest in the business world. Now in retirement, I have become increasingly critical of large corporations and the capitalist system, believing that radical change is necessary. However, I am equally critical of the socialist and cooperative business models.
When I retired in 2012, I could not have foreseen the rise of Substack. It has become my favorite source of reading content. It is the platform on which I publish my writing, on Metamodern Wannabes and UNKOWNINGS.
Substack was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in San Francisco. It is an interesting business story, the first one that I have looked at in many years. And I will probably follow this story for the foreseeable future.
In January, 2021 Forbes published an article about The Rise Of Substack—And What’s Behind It.
Substack—which allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to their readers and monetize their work by putting it behind a paywall—has been growing steadily ever since its launch in 2017. A Y Combinator graduate that is also backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Substack now has more than 250,000 paying subscribers. Perhaps even more impressive, its top ten publishers collectively bring in $7 million in annualized revenue. While some are skeptical about whether the shift from algorithm-powered news feeds to age-old email newsletters will be long-lasting, others are optimistic that, in fact, what’s old is a new age of media.
I am probably typical of what is driving the new age of media. Beginning around 2015, my consumption of content from the mainstream media has been in steady decline. I cannot imagine any way that they can regain my confidence or attention.
I follow Paul Kingsnorth on Substack and from him I became aware of an article by Matt Taibbi on DEC 12,2023, Tireless Busybodies Again Target Substack, and I began paying some attention to the Substack Nazi problem. On DEC 13 Elle Griffin posted Substack shouldn’t decide what we read. On DEC 14 Talia Lavin posted Substackers Against Nazis - an open letter, of which I am a signatory. On DEC 21 Hamish McKenzie, one of the Substack co-founders, addressed the situation with this Note. And on JAN 09, 2024 Jesse Singal posted Platformer’s Reporting On Substack’s Supposed “Nazi Problem” Is Shoddy And Misleading.
Well, that was quite the drama! Personally, I was satisfied by the official Substack response from Hamish McKenzie. And I try to be aware of culture war and cancel culture while not being captured by such dynamics.
As a platform, Substack continues to develop. However, I have a frustration that a new Substack feature could help alleviate. I sent the following message with seven Substacks that I am very interested in.
I am a free subscriber to your Substack and I have no beef with your paywall. I love your content. Currently I am a paid subscriber to four Substacks and I can afford a few more. But I lack the time to consume all that you offer. Please consider making more of your content available for free, for example access to one post per month that is currently behind your paywall. Better yet, how about somehow bundling with other content creators on Substack and creating an irresistible deal?
Sent to:
Jules Evans, Perspectiva, Bobby Azarian, Lyman Pascal, Daniel Pinchbeck, Alexander Biener, Elizabeth Oldfield
Shortly after I sent these Chat messages I was banned by Substack but I did not immediately make the connection. It seems that their monitoring system has mistaken my activity for phishing. This happened on a Saturday as I was preparing to post a couple of articles the next morning and I was not pleased.
So my essay About Substack has taken a very unexpected turn.
On Saturday I submitted an appeal of my ban to the Substack Trust & Safety Team but got no response. On Sunday I sent the following message to the team and again got no response.
I have been banned by Substack and your Trust & Safety Team is not responding to my appeal.
I think I have figured out what happened and you should be thanking me for coming up with a good idea.
I sent the same message to seven writers and your computer system misinterpreted my action for phishing.
Two of the seven writers replied to me and liked my idea, so probably many more writers want this.
Here is the message.
I am a free subscriber to your Substack and I have no beef with your paywall. I love your content. Currently I am a paid subscriber to four Substacks and I can afford a few more. But I lack the time to consume all that you offer. Please consider making more of your content available for free, for example access to one post per month that is currently behind your paywall. Better yet, how about somehow bundling with other content creators on Substack and creating an irresistible deal?
Please consider adding a bundling feature to your platform.
AND PLEASE HELP ME WITH GETTING THE BAN LIFTED NOW.
Trying to come up with more ideas about how to resolve my problem, I found Hamish McKenzie, a Substack co-founder, on LinkedIn and sent him the above message. And I found a Substack page on LinkedIn with 28,000 hollowers and posted the same message. There was no response to these moves.
The situation remained the same on Monday and I reflected on my subjective state. I was having the experience of finding no one willing and able to help me. Zooming out, I realized that in the Big Picture, my problem with Substack was tiny although it felt huge. I was feeling stuck, lacked energy for other matters, irritated and frustrated. I was a bit disappointed with myself for being this way.
I was aware that Monday was a holiday, Memorial Day, in the US and that this contributed to the lack of response from Substack. On Tuesday morning there was no change until about midmorning. Finally I got an email from Ted that my case was being reviewed.
A couple of hours later I got the following email.
Hi John,
Violet here from Substack Trust & Safety. Thanks for taking the time to submit this appeal.
It appears that one of our platform safety detection mechanisms incorrectly flagged your publication as spam. I've reactivated your account so you should be able to start publishing again immediately. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Please don't hesitate to reach out if there's any other way I can assist.
Best,
Violet @ Substack
But also in my Inbox was another email sent twenty minutes later.
Hi John,
Violet here from Substack Trust & Safety. Thanks for submitting this appeal.
Upon additional review we've determined that your publication is in violation of Substack's Content Guidelines and will not be reactivated.
Best,
Violet @ Substack
This email triggered a very strong, negative emotional reaction. Now for the first time during this episode I felt anger. I replied as follows.
Greetings Violet,
It is my intent to comply with all Substack guidelines. Could you be specific about what I am violating in your opinion? I am a small fish with 63 subscribers and have never received a complaint from anyone about anything. And I was supportive of Substack when you dealt with your Nazi problem. And now I am a problem. Please explain.
Regards,
John
However, it seemed my account was functional again so I posted an article and checked with friends who confirmed that it was visible. I have had no more problems and it seems that everything is back to normal. The matter appears closed but there has been no further communication to me from Substack.