> “If Substack is successful, it will remind news consumers that paying for good journalism is worth it,” wrote the University of Maine’s Michael Socolow for Th

> “If Substack is successful, it will remind news consumers that paying for good journalism is worth it,” wrote the University of Maine’s Michael Socolow for The Conversation. “But if Substack’s pricing precludes widespread distribution of its news and commentary, its value as a public service won’t be fully realized.” Is this basically saying that authors need to keep their content freely accessible so that Substack provides a wider public good? If so then I would say that this is already the case. Most authors keep nearly all their content publicly visible. Those who subscribe do so to support good work, not to gain exclusivity. In that sense, the community/content model is more like Patreon than Only Fans. In my opinion what makes Substack great is its lack of censorship (encouraging a diversity of thought), the fact that readers pay individual authors (unlike medium where you pay for access to the whole site), and the fact that making/collecting payments is easy for users/authors. Sure you can host your own Wordpress and hook up a payment mechanism and all that - but there’s a certain degree of trust and convenience that Substack offers eager subscribers. I feel its payments appeal is a lot like tipping via rewards in the Brave browser (https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021123971-How-do-I-tip-websites-and-Content-Creators-in-Brave-Rewards- https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021123971-How...) but more accessible and understandable to the layperson.