Does anybody on Substack make any money?
Other than those paid to post here by Substack/Others
It seems to me a little like Huffington Post a decade or two ago where there was a bit of controversy about writers working for free.
Well I suspect most writers here on Substack are working for free as well. I’ve often thought that it would take 30k subscribers to be able to make minimum wage on this platform. But judging by these stats it is more like 100k subscribers that I’d need.
Ignore the paid subscribers there as it is still reflecting some paid subscriptions that I gave away a while ago. Instead if you divide 396 by 40 you get the real figure for paid subscribers which is about 10 by the looks of it. Or just over 1%.
I’ve been here about 2 years or so and have not pushed myself as hard as some have but even if I did manage to push my subscribers 10x higher that just means I’m working for $5 a day instead of 50 cents a day.
Of course Substack has paid many to post here. Like Robert Malone maybe?
The truth is that Substack is no game changer, it instead promotes those who already had a platform in the main stream media even if they were classified as ‘alternative’. For example the top ten writers on Substack include Matt Taibbi, Andrew Sullivan, Bill Bishop and Glenn Greenwald. Interestingly Bill Bishop despite being in the top ten only had ‘thousands of subscribers’ at the time of the publishing of that article which was a few months ago. I’m sure that some around here are in that category, do you make an income from this platform? (the obvious answer is no).
I would add that from my interactions with Glenn Greenwald on Twitter that if you’re relying on him for an alternative view then you’re going to be sorely disappointed at some stage. He’s pure establishment.
One other interesting tidbit that I found researching this article is that Hamish McKenzie from little ol’ Otago is one of the three founders of the platform. Pretty sure that he’s had a byline in the Otago Daily Times on occasion.
How about paying me, a fellow Otagoan, a million to post here Hamish?
Glenn Greenwald has advised me that he is no longer on Substack. He's on "Locals".
One thing I find interesting is that none of the establishment alternative media figures will mention voting systems at all. Ever. I've begged all of them to do it, and God knows they often seem pretty desperate to scrape together the daily content so you would think. But no. rangevoting.org might make some actual difference beyond rage and clicks