We Are Slowly Letting Substack Die

The algorithm wants you to write about the algorithm. Don’t.

Imagine walking up to a lemonade stand on a hot July afternoon.

You’re thirsty. You have three dollars. You say, “I would like some lemonade.”

The kid behind the counter looks at you, pushes up his glasses, and says, “We don’t actually sell lemonade. We sell a $49 course on how to synergize neighborhood thirst dynamics, leverage unused lumber to build a stand, and scale your lemonade enterprise to 10k MRR.”

You look behind you. There is a line of 5,000 people desperately waiting to buy the kid’s course so they, too, can build stands that sell courses about stands. Meanwhile, everybody is still dying of thirst.

Welcome to the status quo of the creator economy.

If you spend enough time scrolling these days, you realize the “How to Get Rich” virus has officially jumped from Twitter and LinkedIn over to Substack. The symptoms are always the same. The humble-brag (“How I made $10k while sleeping”). The empty platitude (“Clarity is key”). The engagement bait (“Drop your link below”).

It is a closed system where creators sell “how to be a creator” to other creators who want to be creators. It is a feedback loop that feels like there is a community of people, but it is actually just noise. It’s a Hall of Mirrors.

The algorithm loves it. Content about “growth” gets obsessively clicked by people who are anxious about growth. The platforms amplify the signal, implying that this is what success looks like.

But a Hall of Mirrors has no exit. Everyone is agreeing with each other about how to write, but nobody is actually writing about anything.

Substack used to feel like a quiet cathedral for writers. Now, it starts to feels just like any other social media. And that sucks.

It’s time to throw a rock through the glass.

We don’t need another post about how to get 1,000 subscribers. We don’t need another breakdown of a viral note.

We need you.

We need the you that existed before you started worrying about your open rates. We need the you that has a craft, a struggle, and a life in the real world.

You won’t build a resilient strategy by studying the platform. You have to leave it.

Go do something interesting in the real world.

Learn to bake sourdough. Train for a marathon. Fail at a garden. Struggle with a philosophy that creates tension. Have an adventure that cannot be summarized in a six-second video.

Then, and only then, come back and write about that.

We are drowning in advice and starving actual for wisdom.

Advice is cheap. “Post at 9 AM.” “Use this subject line.” That is a commodity.
Wisdom is expensive. Wisdom comes from doing something hard and failing at it, and then figuring out why.

When you bring your wisdom into the Hall of Mirrors, you break the glass. You stop being a reflection of a reflection. You become a source.

This is scary. It is scary because “How to Get Rich” is a proven commodity. It feels safe to sell shovels to gold diggers.

Writing about your specific, idiosyncratic, real-world journey feels risky. It is terrifying to write a nuanced essay knowing it might only get six likes, while the grifter next door gets five thousand for a listicle. The algorithm might not recognize you immediately.

Good.

If the algorithm doesn’t know what to do with you, it means you aren’t a commodity. You have crossed the line from content into art.

You are the immune system of this platform.

We have a sickness right now where we believe the ultimate goal is a million dollars and a massive personal brand. It's a trap. The actual dream? Make a decent living, do work you are proud of, 1,000 readers who truly care, and shut your laptop at 5:00 PM to go eat dinner with your family.

The people who built this platform didn’t start writing to get famous. They started writing because they had a gift. They didn’t set out to create content. Their gift was a perspective on a life actually lived.

Don’t trade your unique perspective for a listicle that ChatGPT could have written.

If you are a writers quietly showing up, sharing your art, and building slowly: Please don’t stop. You are the immune system of this platform. And we need you more than ever.

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P.S. The only thing remembered is the people who made this platform real. To be real, you have to know the difference between the performance you give for the algorithm and who you actually are.

I created The Archetype Navigator to help you with that It’s free and takes less than 5 minutes to uncover your natural pattern, so you can build a body of work that actually looks like you. It might save you years of climbing the wrong ladder.