How Substack Ruined Me Into a Better Writer

Envy—for lack of a better word—is good. And Substack knows it.

What if Gordon Gekko wasn’t a stockbroker?

What if he wasn’t barking into brick phones or running Wall Street?

What if Gordon Gekko was the CEO of Substack?

Picture it:

A beachfront writing retreat in Big Sur.

Gekko steps onto a cedar stage wearing a linen suit and Warby Parker frames.

He clears his throat. The room is full of anxious writers pretending not to refresh their dashboard stats.

And then he says:

“Envy—for lack of a better word—is good.

Envy works.

Envy clarifies, cuts, and compels.

Envy is the whisper in every writer’s head when someone else’s post goes viral.

Envy is the edge that makes you tear up the whole paragraph just to land one honest line.

Envy built this platform.”

You’d laugh.

You’d cringe.

But deep down, you’d know he’s right.

And that’s when it hit me:

Substack didn’t make me a better writer by rewarding me.

It made me a better writer by breaking me open and watching if I’d bleed honesty or bullshit.

This isn’t a community.

At least that’s not ALL it is.

Let’s not get it twisted.

It’s writer capitalism.

And the only currency is envy.

You’d laugh.

You’d cringe.

But deep down, you’d know he’s right.

Not because you’re proud of it.

Not because you want to admit it.

But because if you’ve spent more than ten minutes on this platform, you’ve felt it:

That little envy fueled twinge when someone you follow gets hundreds of likes.

That quiet voice asking why your best work didn’t land.

That impulse to scroll their page and study the rhythm of their paragraphs like a crime scene.

You tell yourself you’re above it.

That you’re writing for the love, the craft, the community.

But here’s the part nobody wants to say out loud:

Substack doesn’t just reward envy—it depends on that shit.

Every stat, every heart, every green upward arrow on the dashboard…

is designed to make you feel something.

Not joy. Not peace.

Pressure.

The pressure to prove you’re worthy of being read.

The pressure to matter.

The pressure to matter more than someone else.

And this is where I was gonna drop the line:

“Welcome to writer capitalism, motherfuckers…”

But I’ve got email subscribers now. Some of y’all are new.

Some of y’all are nice.

So let’s try it like this instead:

Welcome to writer capitalism. Where the only currency is envy—and you’re always goddamn broke.

Substack sells itself as a haven for writers.

A refuge from clickbait and hot takes.

A platform that finally lets you write what matters.

But what it actually gives you… is a leaderboard.

A quiet one. A polite one.

But a leaderboard all the same.

Follower counts. Subscriber counts. Likes. Recommendations.

And the most dangerous metric of all:

The silent post.

No hearts. No comments.

No replies.

Just the echo of your own prose bouncing off the inside of your skull.

And that’s when the envy kicks in.

Not the loud, obvious kind.

The quiet kind. The respectable kind.

The kind that reads other people’s brilliance and nods in public—

while grinding its teeth in private.

You start asking questions that sound poetic but are really just desperate:

What am I doing wrong?

Is my voice too raw?

Too polished?

Too Black?

Not Black enough?

And this is where most people start writing for envy—

not from it.

I felt that shift happening in me.

Not just online, but in my own damn family.

My mother’s a writer. Loves to talk. Hates to listen.

Silly me—I tried to share some thoughts about a post I was working on.

Just thoughts. Not even the whole thing.

What I got instead was a full cross-examination.

Like I was a first-year law student in a Platonic seminar with a professor who’d never heard of silence.

I couldn’t get a single word in.

No space. No breath. Just theory, debate, dissection.

I laughed and thought:

Damn. This feels exactly like Substack.

A room full of writers—yapping, theorizing, sermonizing—

and not a soul actually listening.

Don’t get me wrong.

There’s brilliance in the room.

Some of these folks got pens sharp enough to shave atoms.

But when it came to me?

My voice?

I’m just a retired cop with enough followers to count on one hand.

I’m not a Columbia MFA.

I’m not on the podcast circuit.

I don’t have a TED Talk, a book deal, or a Substack Pro badge.

And maybe that’s why nobody hears me here.

Or maybe it’s something else.

Older folks just don’t wanna listen.

And younger folks don’t wanna listen and absorb the wisdom they’re dying to give away.

Either way…

I’ve been here before.

I wrote more about that here, if you’re curious:

Anyway. I digress.

But that moment? Sitting across from my mother, silenced mid-sentence?

It reminded me exactly what it feels like on this platform.

Substack is full of people who want to be heard.

But very few who know how to listen.

I used to think envy was a flaw.

A weakness I was supposed to meditate away.

But lately, I’ve started treating it like a red pen.

Envy tells me exactly where my hunger lives.

When I see someone go viral for a line I wish I wrote?

That’s envy saying: “You’ve been playing it safe.”

When I read a post that feels effortless, magnetic, and sooo honest?

That’s envy saying: “You buried your truth in craft. Dig it back up.”

Envy isn’t the voice that says I’m not good enough.

It’s the one that says: “You’re close. Keep it pushin.”

So I stopped running from it.

I started studying it.

I let it hurt.

I let it highlight.

I let it show me where I’ve been hiding.

And slowly—ever so very slowly—

I started writing less like a strategist

and more like a man telling the truth with a mouth full of blood.

That’s what envy gave me.

Not strategy. Not growth hacks.

But urgency.

At some point, I gave up on being heard.

Not in a sad, mopey way.

In a clean, surgical way—like pulling a knife out of your own back and saying “We’re done here.”

I stopped writing for “the audience.”

And started writing for one person who may or may not exist.

That one reader who finds it at the right moment.

Who feels the same ache in their chest when a post goes ignored.

Who scrolls through a sea of cleverness, craving something raw.

I don’t know their name.

But I know the feeling I want to leave them with.

The feeling I get when I stumble on a post with zero likes—

and it still knocks the wind out of me.

That’s who I write for now.

Not for applause.

Not for growth.

But for connection.

One person.

One moment.

One truth I’m no longer afraid to say.

🌀 Substack Knows It

Substack didn’t just “ruin” me by accident.

It’s designed to do this.

The same way Instagram knows how to make you feel ugly.

The same way Twitter knows how to make you feel loud.

Substack knows how to make you feel unread.

And that feeling? Man, it just pulls you deeper in.

I’ve lost hours in the Notes scroll black hole.

Not reading, but monitoring.

Watching who’s getting rec’d, who’s being quoted, who’s being seen.

Clicking through endless tiny dopamine loops of “someone figured it out.”

It feels casual. But it’s not.

This isn’t a glitch in the design.

This is the goddamn design.

Substack runs on envy the way Facebook runs on outrage.

And it’s brilliant.

Because envy is quiet.

It doesn’t make noise ladies and gents…it makes content.

So yeah. Substack ruined me.

It ruined my illusions.

It ruined my desire to be liked.

It ruined my fake humility.

And beneath all that?

I found someone who writes like they mean it.

Not for growth.

Not for glory.

Not for the algorithm.

For one person.

And hey on the right day?

That person is me.