OP isn't complaining about the lack of an audience at Substack. OP is complaining about the huge amount of support (aka cash payments) given to already establis

OP isn't complaining about the lack of an audience at Substack. OP is complaining about the huge amount of support (aka cash payments) given to already established players to join Substack (via pro) while giving no support of the sort to independent writers. OP also comments that this kind of support ($100kish) is what allows big writers to move to Substack as an independent instead of being tied to a job. While I don't support OP's premise of Substack pushing an agenda through Pro, I'm also not supportive of what essentially are the platform's bribes to famous writers, which the platform uses to market to independent writers as a way to make more money. But I believe that's standard practice anyways everywhere - YouTube Creators get paid to host on YouTube, while smaller creators aren't even paid until they hit thousand subs. But AFAIK, YouTube didn't pay any creators to join the platform outright like Substack does. Edit:- didn't know Substack was a HN pet company