The difference, I think, is that nobody goes to "Substack", they go to particular people on Substack. The existence of low-quality stuff on Substack doesn't have any impact on me at all, since I never see it and don't have to interact with it.

I suppose there is someone out there who actually browses the Substack front page, but this is very far from being the dominant mode for substack content.

Isn't it literally the same with Medium? People go to Medium posts from Google and co, and maybe subscribe to a specific Medium poster. Medium tries to do recommendations "since you've read X you might like Y" which are fine, but i doubt many people go to Medium.

> the Substack front page

I wasn't even aware there was such a thing, all substack content I consume I found organically. I'm sure it's much the same for the majority of their readers.

what you describe only happens to a "social network" where it's not a marketplace of content but of social credits instead. What you describe will not happen to substack same way it did not happen to youtube: people are here to sell content and make money, instead of selling their personal brand to make money elsewhere.

There are plenty of vapid self-aggrandizing talks on YouTube. Overacted stuff seems to have more success with the algorithm than slick marketer-style content, but I'm not sure that's an improvement.

I personally have more of an issue with people who have nothing interesting to sell, and make content to sell themselves intead. I dont have any quible with people who work hard to make and sell content. If you dont like their content you dont buy it, the martket is working.