Why I don't like Substack

 

I got tired of reporting the weather.

I suppose that this dislike has an analogy in how I identify the tenor of the group publishing there with the cliques that dominated in the cafeteria back in my high school days.  There were variants off of four basic flavors, there were probably ten to twelve different groups with brownian motion allowing for some remarkably shallow cross-fertilization:

→  The Cool Kids

→  The Jocks

→  The Hippies

→  The Nerds

I attempted moving over to substack, but the more I went there, the more that I got the feeling that I was trying to break into the cool kids table.  Now, I ate there frequently when in high school, but I always felt a bit of a poseur.  Physically, I was the Jock of Jocks, but mentally I belonged at the Nerd table.  

Substack feels more like college, and I seem to have wandered over to a table populated primarily by business majors.  Even worse, they appear to be either freshman or sophomore business majors, but everyone there seems to be a touch too concerned about getting paid.  

Now, don’t get me wrong, there is some serious quality work going on over there, Aurelian, Ugo, Simplicius, the list is pretty long.  Sometimes I don’t get to read some of Simplicius’ work because he holds it hostage for donations, but overall he gives out freely.  

I tend to think that I am too enamored by the idea that thoughts should be free.  I have to work out just what I expect from the access to information and opinion allowed by the net.  But that kinda talk would cripple the press, academic and institutional consultant industries.  What a tragedy that would be.