I’m still trying to identify why I like Substack so much more than other social platforms. So navel gazing warning is in place.
One of the things that annoyed me with Substack is the fact that the various people writing on it do so for duplicates of themselves.
There is an clear pattern on Substack: users are clustered together and there are strong boundaries between disciplines.
Writers publish newsletters predominantly read by other writers. Even when their subject isn’t writing itself, they create content for virtual mirrors: individuals who share their creative passions, occupational challenges, and professional perspectives.
Photographers build visual essays consumed primarily by fellow photographers. Their technical discussions, artistic choices, and visual experimentation resonate most with those who already understand photography to a certain depth.
Political commentators analyse current events for audiences composed largely of other political junkies, academics, and fellow analysts who already possess the contextual framework to appreciate nuanced takes.
Of course I generalise, but this is an obvious trend.
This dynamic initially annoyed me: it’s a closed ecosystem where specialists talk only to specialists, creating bubbles resistant to outside perspective, an incestious system where like only communicates with like. What value could there be in preaching to the converted? What is the point of sharing insights with those who already agree with you?
And then it hit me: that’s exactly the point.
Unlike other social media (make no mistake, it is just another social media platform), by creating independent clusters, Substack creates communities where conversations can progress beyond the basics.
This community structure has two advantages:
1. Reduced Toxicity
There are far fewer arguments ignited by uninformed participants. The absence of drive-by commenters and algorithmic rage-bait means discussions remain largely constructive (in my experience anyway). Disagreements exist, but they tend to be substantive rather than performative.
2. Intellectual Depth
Conversations can achieve meaningful depth when participants share basic knowledge. Discussions begin where casual interest ends, allowing for nuanced exploration impossible in generalist spaces.
Before Substack, specialist publications and communities certainly existed. Literary journals, photography magazines, academic publications all served similar purposes. What Substack has done is democratise this model, removing hurdles while preserving the benefits of specialised discourse.
The most interesting aspect of Substack’s ecosystem is how these specialist communities, despite their inward focus, often produce content with greater lasting value than platforms designed for maximum reach.
By relieving writers of the burden to make everything accessible to everyone, Substack enables the creation of content that pushes boundaries within fields. The most valuable innovations rarely emerge from trying to appeal to the broadest possible audience.
These specialist conversations, apparently closed to outsiders, actually advance shared knowledge in ways that more “open” platforms often fail to. They create reference points, establish new ideas, and push collective understanding.
For readers and writers alike, Substack’s ecosystem offers something increasingly rare in digital spaces: conversations that assume intelligence and prior knowledge; spaces where expertise is valued over controversy; where being well-informed trumps being loud; and where shared knowledge creates a foundation for advancing ideas rather than endlessly rehashing basics. This isn’t elitism, it’s the recognition that meaningful discourse requires shared context.
When you find a Substack community aligned with your interests and knowledge base, you’re not just finding content, you’re finding your intellectual peers. The writers who speak your language. The readers who understand your references. The commenters who can challenge your ideas substantively. In many ways, Substack reminds me of the forums of the early 2000s.
It might read as an advertisement for Substack, but in a digital landscape often optimised for conflict and superficiality, it has built something different: a network of specialist communities where depth matters more than breadth, and where talking to people like yourself isn’t a limitation: it’s the whole point.
#Substack #Theory #Opinion #Personal