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Why Substack writers should make money

Jon Rappoport
Mar 27, 2024

Let’s start here.

In the fall of 1988, the New York Times raised the price of its weekday paper to 35 cents.

For five days a week, the total came to $1.75.

For that amount of money, you could have read all the lies the Times published, suffered through its vital omissions, and digested CIA limited hangouts.

Taking my subscription price as a comparison, you can read my 5 weekday articles for $1.15 a week, if you buy a yearly subscription.

Case closed.

Substack writers should make money because they’re giving their readers what the readers want.

This is true free market capitalism, without cronies or collusion, at the simplest and best level.

Value given, value received.

On the other hand, Substack writers should realize they’re participating in basic capitalism. This isn’t a Collective or a union shop.

It doesn’t matter what political ideas writers may hold. Even if they’re on the far Left, they signed up for capitalism, unless they intend to work for free.

Readers need to understand Substack writers aren’t using an advertising model. They aren’t offering their articles for nothing because advertisers are paying them. That model exists everywhere on the Internet. But not on Substack.

Substack is very much like the days when people walked by a newsstand and picked up a paper and paid for it. Or they took out a subscription and a kid riding a bike every day passed their house and threw a paper on the porch.

The difference is, Substack writers aren’t getting paid by the newspaper they work for. Every writer is his own newspaper.

That’s Reality.

When the Internet first went public, a theme was introduced: “all information should be free.” The people who pushed that theme were corporate types who were making the Internet their business. The “free” slogan was their public relations strategy to bring people on board and make their business a winner.

A level above them, the true captains of the Internet were military and intelligence men, who intended to make this new thing the biggest profiling and data mining and surveillance operation in the history of the world.

Nobody in his right mind thought information was free.

It’s always been paid for. Some way or another.

But as society has devolved and fallen apart, a whole new class and breed has emerged. People who want everything (or as much as they can get) for nothing.

This is the Welfare model.

Everyone seems to benefit, except the writers. The writers put in research, investigation—plus the actual writing. They apply their energy and thought to discover what lies below the surface. And down the rabbit hole.

And according to the Welfare model, they go broke.

They’re also in line for two bonuses. The first one is, if they’re really lucky they can get censored.1

The second one is, they can develop a messiah/martyr complex: “I’m saving the world for nothing, while most of my readers, who can afford to pay me, don’t push a nickel across the table.”

As you might guess, I’m not one of those writers.

And I know the overwhelming number of Substack writers aren’t, either. They might need a kick in the head to wake them up, but a few seconds after they receive that kick, they say:

“Where is my money?”

Despite how we may write once in a while, to solicit funds, we aren’t beggars sitting on a sidewalk shaking a can with a few coins in it as people pass by.

I also know the overwhelming number of Substack readers can afford to pay $1.15 a week to get what they want from their writers.

So a large de-conditioning process has to occur, for both readers and writers.

We need to get rid of the “everything should be free” mind control dagger.

We need to come to grips with the fact that economic capitalism, on this stark and basic level, is necessary. And good.

What people say, for all the wrong reasons, we have to say for right ones: “Remove the stigma.” Take away the stigma of ground-level capitalism.

Cue the music and the marching band:

Walk in the sun, baby, unfurl a flag, blow a few horns, and raise a glass, and say: “I’m a writer and I charge money; and I’m a reader and I pay the writer; and if anybody can’t handle that either way, get lost. We’re not all in this together. We’re doing this one person at a time. Value given, value received.”

This isn’t an MKULTRA Welfare State.

-- Jon Rappoport

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