Media outlets other than substack are also hiring terrible people, and optimizing for trash.

To me the largest difference between large corporate outlets and substack (and other reader-financed journalists) is that large corporate outlets will keep people employed for years that nobody wants to read and could never support themselves independently - journalists who are only important and interesting because of their access to the outlet. The outlets themselves keep those journalists around as pure vehicles for the opinions of their owners.

At least with these outlets, the owners are the readers. If the readers like trash, they'll pay for trash. If the owners like quality, they'll demand it. I don't have to worry about how the subject of the article will affect Bezos's net worth, or wonder how David Brooks, Maureen Dowd, or Thomas Friedman are still employed.

But still, we’re not sure that the content will be free of external influence taking advantage of the writer’s reputation.

Obviously if they peddle too many interested articles they'll likely get caught, but if they do it once in a while or take payment from opposing interests, etc., who’ll know the difference?

There is no "we" here, certainly not in the sense that "do we think a minute". People can choose for themselves just fine, and they'll do so whether I wring my hands about it or not. If you want to be worried about other people, go ahead but leave me out of it. :)

Obviously trash sells and it always has ("The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience"), but some people care more about things like truth and style than they do about money.

This is the world we're living in. Unfortunately, I can give you only one upvote...

Regardless of whether Doritos are more profitable we still have millions of acres of staple crops grown each year. There is no shortage of good writing but it may not come in microwaveable packets. If the majority of the people don't care then that's the downside to living in a free society where each has their choice.

Majority people's staples are now junk. I expect the same thing to happen in media.