So I started my career in "traditional" journalism, working for a nice little newspaper called the Moscow Times, but the problem there was they wouldn't let you write with humor or break certain formats. So I quit and ended up several times self-publishing by putting out newspapers, which is hilarious in context -- these days people just need to type something and upload it, but we used to have to painstakingly design every page, create huge metal plates, print off them, make giant stacks of newspapers, distribute them (I've even done the distribution on my own, in cars), just to be "self-published." Also I had to sell ads back in the day! With the internet came blogging, which is obviously much simpler but the problem, again, always comes back to representing a larger financial outlet, not wanting to clash with an editor or advertisers over material, having to haggle over what to write about and when. Substack is basically just the writer and the reader and it's very painless. I think in the future you'll see a lot of writers and media personalities breaking off and using this kind of format.