Before smartphones and before the internet, I used to read newspapers, magazines, and novels. Now it has been more than a decade since I have read a newspaper. I stopped buying magazines ages ago and I have to force myself to finish the novel even if it is well-recommended and I am enjoying it.

Instead, I spend hours on LinkedIn, Medium, blogs, and countless newsletters I subscribe to. I have tried to get away from it all and get back to some serious reading but failed. Serious reading bores me now. I want a fast-paced bite-size reading I can do in between chores and my own writing commitments.

Hamish Mckenzie, cofounder and Chief Writing Officer of Substack wrote an article, Time To Read, in which he admitted, “If I picked up a book instead of reflexively opening Twitter every couple of hours, I’m sure I would have read through my way through a library in the last 10 years.”

Social media is conspiring against our better instincts. It wants to feed us continuous dopamine hits and we keep accepting its offer.

The economic model for supporting content on the internet sucks. It doesn’t put readers first. The readers are addicted to Twitter and TikTok because these companies are zeroing in on the most titillating content to keep readers in a perpetual state of not-quite-satisfied-but-close. Social media companies are serving advertisers, not the readers.

For hundreds of years, publishing giants, newspapers, and magazines were making money through advertisements. But the internet vaporized that model. The new publishing giants, the social media companies, have a new model — ad-overload.

In all this mayhem, the writers were forgotten. They didn’t have the security of an agency behind them. They are not only expected to write for free but to continuously produce an unbelievable amount of content.

Medium came up with the concept of a Paywall

Medium.com was one of the first publishing companies to come up with a plan to pay writers for their work. They introduced a Paywall. They charged readers a monthly subscription fee and paid writers a portion of that based on the number of views and clicks.

The model became so successful that millions of readers and thousands of writers flocked to the platform. They ranged from amateurs to experts, all writing being able to find readers. But after enjoying an unbelievable amount of success for 3 to 4 years, Medium.com started on a downward spiral. There were several reasons for that and one of them being Medium started concentrating on readers (from where the revenue was coming) and ignored the writers (who were doing the hard yards to make Medium a success).

Thankfully things are beginning to change in mid-2022. The new CEO, Tony Stubblebine, is trying to turn the ship. While Medium was on a downward spiral, a new model emerged, introduced by Substack.

Substack model is different

Substack didn’t pay the writers as Medium did, but it allowed them to charge their readers directly. Writers could send their work directly to readers’ inboxes and charge whatever they thought it was worth. Substack made it possible and took a 10 percent cut of subscription revenue generated by the writers on the platform.

Substack can succeed only when writers succeed.

It’s a better model because one of the better ways an internet publishing company can provide value is by helping writers find more readers and make more money. And the best way to do that is to make sure readers are happy. Doing the right thing for the writer means doing the best thing for readers.

The way Substack is providing a great reading experience is:

• by providing clean, simple, fast-to-load posts
• no Ads
• no pop-ups
• directly in the inbox
• option to read in the App
• growth within the platform.

On Substack, readers have a closer relationship with the writer they care about. And writers have the ability and space to go deep into the issues that really matter to them.

A writer’s primary loyalty is to readers, and they get rewarded for using their attention wisely. They don’t have to play a game with an algorithm or trick readers into clicking like they had to with Medium. They are independent and not at the mercy of a company.

If they disappoint readers, the readers have the power to unsubscribe with just a click.

Readers don’t subscribers to newsletters

They subscribe to writers.

They want to know what their favorite writer’s thoughts are on a range of topics, what their experiences and learnings are, and what their life is like.

I subscribe to several newsletters, but in fact, I subscribe to the writers.

I want to read what they are saying. When I am reading a writer’s post, it’s just me and the words. I bury myself in the writer’s thoughts and eloquence and ideas.

The future of online writing will be different

The first thirty years of the internet were built on the mistaken business assumption that online reading isn’t worth as much physical reading. So they focused on clickbait or social flotsam and jetsam.

But the internet is still just getting started, and so is Substack. The way we’ve thought about online writing and reading for these first 30 years won’t be true for the next 30.

Big things are still to come. Writers will have the power their work directly with their readers.

And the readers will have the power to choose which writers they want to read.