This is something I've been thinking about a lot. When I deleted my accounts on the various social platforms, substack was the first venue I gravitated towards as both a producer (namely: for its free mailing list functionality) and a consumer (to seek out news content and perspectives that had previously been delivered to me on say, Instagram). The politics of its founders and funders have turned me off it as a tool for production, but this is clearly not the case for most.
They do not even need to incentivize platforming fascist viewpoints on Substack for it to serve their agenda. It is enough to make the platform functional and lucrative enough for reporters to make a living on to finalize the atomization of news production and consumption. As the big pillars of journalism fail to meet the moment either by clinging to the fairness doctrine and tailoring to an imaginary middle (IE: NYTimes) or take a reputational hit via ownership credentials (LATimes, WaPo), they're replaced in peoples inboxes and feeds by a kaleidoscope of substack mailing lists that better reflect what they're looking for. A centralized instrument of power is fundamentally undermined when no two people gather their news from the same sources, but this doesn't undermine manufactured consent - it just diffuses it, making it less observable. One thing I see missing from Substack's vacuum hoovering effect on criticism, opinion, and reporting is the impact on local city/county level journalism. Monetizing hyper-local reportage the way the successful substacks do seems like an enormous challenge. Here, there is some interesting reporting- see: https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/01/inside-a-network-of-ai-generated-newsletters-targeting-small-town-america/ on the war between already anemic local papers and radio programs and national AI newsletter aggregators. as a parallel I recommend this little glimpse into local independent reporting- https://jonathangerhardson.substack.com/p/get-in-loser-were-manufacturing-consent on the subject of hand tailoring an AI model to multiply the ability for one person to report on events in what is now a news desert. and for anyone who doesn't need the easy-monetization features of substack and just desires a plug and play mailing list blog- Mataroa https://mataroa.blog/ is a service I think very highly of. Mar 26, 2025, 07:29 by [email protected]: > Recently watched a February 2025 interview on the BBC’s /Media Show/ > <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dv9hq> with Mehdi Hasan, the > journalist behind Zeteo <https://zeteo.com/>. He’s using Substack and > paid subscriptions to build a left-leaning media company (complete with > branded hoodies <https://shop.zeteo.com/>) as an alternative to legacy > outlets such as the BBC. Naomi Klein, Owen Jones and Cynthia Nixon are > already involved in delivering content. > > I'm not uncritical of Substack > <http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/masked-media/>, or > unaware of how it works. Still, at first glance, I could see the appeal. > OK, Zeteo is largely opinion-driven - because, as we know, these > platforms require a constant stream of (ideally clippable) content to > keep engagement high. And it’s much easier to do that on a regular basis > if you're offering 'hot takes'. (Yes, Gary Lineker's The Rest Is ... > podcast empire, we're looking at you.) And, indeed, a lot of the > material on Zeteo does come across as filmed podcasts and Zoom calls. > Podcasts and Zoom calls with high production values maybe, but podcasts > and Zoom calls nonetheless. > > However, I can understand why liberal-left journalists might be drawn to > Substack, and to Zeteo - especially given what's going on at the likes > of the BBC <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0m07g49004o>, > /Washington Post > <https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/washington-post-editor-ruth-marcus-resigns-accusing-ceo-killing-column-rcna195634> > /and /Guardian/ > <https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/guardian-the-observer-sale-tortoise-media-carole-cadwalladr-b1201584.html> > right now. (/The Observer’s/ John Naughton can’t go a week without > recommending something from a Substack newsletter in his Networker tech > column - usually by a man. What's that about?) So I got intrigued. > > But before even more of us rush out to join Substack, let me say that > lasted all of about five minutes. > > Then I came across this piece > <https://america2.news/the-substack-dilemma-how-creators-are-inadvertently-fueling-americas-failure/> > from a few days ago on /America 2.0/, which delves deeper into the > politics of Substack. It highlights how the platform isn’t just a > neutral tool for independent journalism - it’s also a key pillar of what > Marc Andressen, Balaji Srinivasan and other advocates of the 'Network > State' call the 'parallel establishment'. > > At the inaugural /Network State/ conference in Amsterdam > <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJg2RipiXz8r9TjC58vujj1gs0rl99GgN> > in October 2023, Srinivasan laid out a vision in which Silicon Valley > elites replace existing legacy institutions with their own alternatives: > > So for example, at the top there's San Francisco and we're replacing San > Francisco with things outside it like Cul-de-Sac in Arizona and Prospera > in South America and Cabin, which is in Texas, but also around the world... > > We're gonna take out Harvard, and we have parallel education that's > Replit, that Synthesis ... but it's also AI tutoring, the Thiel > Fellowship, Emergent Ventures.... > > We replace media with parallel media. It’s Twitter and X, it’s Substack. > ... This concept of the parallel establishment, if you take up all of > these new institutional replacements on the right-hand side together, > that’s a parallel establishment. > > The goal? Pretty much what we're seeing unfold in the US right now. > Disrupt and dismantle societies and their institutions - governments and > government departments, universities, the courts, the press, even cities > - and replace them with decentralized, corporate-backed alternatives > that function as competing fiefdoms. Substack, in this framework, isn’t > just an outlet for independent journalism; it’s part of a broader push > to erode traditional public institutions in favor of privatized, > libertarian tech enclaves. > > So, just in case anyone is tempted, while Substack and Zeteo may seem > like promising alternatives to legacy media, you know ... best to keep > in mind their place in the bigger picture. > > Gary > > > -- > Gary Hall > Professor of Media > Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University: > https://postdigitalcultures.org/about/ > > Director of Open Humanities Press:http://www.openhumanitiespress.org > Websitehttp://www.garyhall.info > > > Latest: > > Book: Masked Media: What It Means to Be Human in the Age of Artificial > Creative > Intelligence:http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/masked-media/ > > Blog posts: 'Making it Unfair, or Who Owns Creativity? AI, Copyright and the > Battle for Wealth and > Control',http://garyhall.squarespace.com/journal/2025/2/25/making-it-unfair-or-who-owns-creativity-ai-copyright-and-the.html > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: https://www.nettime.org > # contact: [email protected] > -- # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: https://www.nettime.org # contact: [email protected]
