The State of the Substack Address
Recommended reads and comments about the platform
After about one year of publishing articles on Substack and reading many more, I have a few recommendations and comments!
Recommendations
Here are your holiday Substack recommendations.
: “Populism Fast and Slow”My favorite article this year was by a Canadian philosophy professor, Joseph Heath. He argues that “populism” is best understood as a preference for fast-thinking, intuition, and common sense—over slower, more analytic cognition. Totally rules. I clicked on this because somebody said it was a “banger” and it has a great title for people like me.
: “The dawn of the post-literate society”This article went viral for good reason. If you read Steven Pinker’s book, Better Angels of Our Nature (and who didn’t?!), then you’ll recall that his core theory was that increasing literacy over the sweep of history leads to a decrease in violence and anchors modern civic institutions. Marriott’s insightful coda is that nowadays people are reading less and less, with corresponding consequences for culture and democracy.
: “The Death of Partying”The award for coolest Substacker in the world has to go to Andrew Yang, who ran for president in 2020 on a universal basic income platform. My brother was a caucus leader for Yang in Iowa, but failed to get him the nomination. Thanks a lot, dude! I paid to subscribe because Yang offered a significant discount and because he writes about the importance of partying and keeping phones out of our lives.
: “This is called ‘capital flight’”It is also easy to find and like Noah Smith. I was an economics major so following his blog about “what a Bay Area economist thinks” was overdetermined. Turn to Noah for your takes on tariffs, capital flight, the Federal Reserve, and other macroeconomic meltdowns. Here’s a great example of an timely explainer from his stack.
: “Why I’m not a centrist”There is a ton of good new-liberal political content on Substack.
makes an important distinction between liberalism and centrism at . Other favorites (which are often nevertheless categorized as centrist) are , , and . For excellent legal writers who cover current developments, check out: , , , , , and countless others.: “The 90s weren’t that great”Now we come to an outlier in my lineup.
is everywhere, very funny, and very online, so at some point you just have to follow. (I’ve chosen a relatively PG and free post to highlight here, cross-posted on another favorite, .) She writes about gender differences and culture and erratic things people say on the Internet. She also restacks people who mention her, which has led to a cottage industry of writers subtly (or not subtly) trying to get restacked.All told, Substack is best place for finding and reading long-form content that is not already packaged in a brand name magazine. It is subscriber-based and ad-free, which is amazing. Publishing is easy. It’s open to anyone. The result is a huge amount of writing from all walks of life.
But it’s still the Internet
The notes are still social media
I thought that a rather bookish long-form website like this one would be safe from the temptations of endless scrolling and social media traps. But it isn’t. You can leave the Twitter but the Twitter won’t leave you—its people will follow and colonize any space. They just can’t stop. They populate the “notes” section with short-form tweet-like statements and graphics. In fact, they even import Twitter posts so they can express disbelief and disagreement. Score! Perhaps the algorithm likes the rage-bait after all.
And the discovery engine is network-driven, not content-driven
The Substack algorithm is apparently more like a social network accelerator than a content distributor (the engineers may disagree, to which I say, the customer feels differently). The main way (and seemingly the only way) that new content or accounts come into my feed is that somebody I’m already following “likes” or restacks the newcomer. This creates the impression that the main way to gain a wider following on Substack is to get attention from larger accounts and hope that they repost your work; hence the efforts to win restacks. Perhaps people are constantly hosting each other on their podcasts because Substack distribution depends on cross-connections with other accounts. One could reply that if the name of the game is networking, what else is new? But some had thought the answer to that question might be: Substack.
Year-end conclusion
Substack is different and better, but it is still a creature of the Internet. You can read something serious and insightful, then immediately scroll into someone dunking on an imported tweet. But the good stuff is always there if you want it — in your inbox, in long-form essays, and in the corners of the platform that still reward attention and thinking over fast reflexes. Here’s to finding more of it in 2025.