I’ve been trying to narrow down what went wrong with Substack when they changed to Notes exactly one year ago. Before that point, my comments and paid subscriptions often triggered a read of this blog. After that point, no reads.
Substack has become a self-contained MLM, focused only on expanding its own superstars.
What’s missing is RECIPROCITY. Every relationship entails some tit-for-tat, some loyalty for loyalty. This was especially true of hobby or sports activities where money wasn’t the primary means of exchange. Radio hams and SWLs had a firm code of reciprocity. If you wanted to get a QSL (receipt) you needed to tell the other station what you heard, your location, and the quality of the reception or contact. Even the big stations like BBC and Moscow observed this rule. When I wrote letters to Radio Moscow and Radio Havana, they wrote real personal letters back, responding to my questions and observations, and correcting my misconceptions about communism.
Long before the hippie era, I knew something about the real Soviet system thanks to these personal letters. Of course I forgot all of it in the ’90s when I joined the neocon cult and parroted Lady Edgar’s toxic idiocy about Soviet subversives. I recovered my old attitude in 2012 after turning off the TV.
Substack was more like a hobby before it switched to MLM, with the same unwritten rule of reciprocity. The two-way-ness is gone now. Superstars demand your loyalty and give nothing in return.
Polistra's Mill 