Que substack becoming medium and 'stacksub' popping up with a new clean interface to take the users. Rinse and repeat and we never learn.

*Cue, a correction spurred by my own intrusively embarrassing memory of a Scrabble game misstep.

English also has "queue" (like a line of people or a certain hairstyle) but "que" generally means somebody is speaking Spanish.

Anyway, I hope that some future generations manage to figure out systems or incentives that avoid or delay that kind of mission decay.

Sadly you are observing the process of learning, it's just not the lesson you hoped they would take.

I tried to capture this phenomenon in writing: https://bower.sh/bowers-law

Would it be better if substack has two forms of the same article? Like have the full article available only for paid members while having another one for someone just checking it out. Leave it to the author to decide what to show in a particular view.

Substack can restrict the size or types of content available in the free view of the article to reduce their server usage. I feel like this way the eventual enshittification could be delayed or even avoided. Of course this way might not be the best for getting YoY growth. And I'm not sure if any website provides such a provision

It's particularly nasty to have it popup when you've already read a couple paragraphs and are starting to get invested in it. At least Washington Post and NYTimes are upfront with their barrier.