A call for support

Please consider supporting smaller Substacks during these times.

First off, let me just say that I appreciated all of the support and comments that I have gotten over the past year!

Given my circumstances I kind of fell into writing on Substack abruptly, so this was a whole new territory for me.

If you read some of my earlier works you can definitely see that I was new to this blogging world…

For the past year Substack has been my main source of income, and although I wouldn’t say the income was anywhere close to my prior job I started this Substack because there were many things going on that didn’t make sense to me and there were plenty of people out there who felt the same.

So this Substack became a place for me to vent about the failings of science these past few years while also trying to provide some perspective on pharmaceuticals and why we should be mindful of not just what a drug does but how it works.

However, over time I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what should come of this Substack given my financial situation. In the Spring I wrote about what may come of this Substack in the future, however I held off on the basis that there’s so much going on that I wanted to make sense of, and I’m sure many people wanted to make sense of things as well.

Given the current economic predicament (to put it VERY LOOSELY) I’m having to reevaluate the situation once again.

Money is becoming very tight for many people, and many families are having to choose where they need to cut back, including their Substack subscriptions. Over the past few months I’ve gotten several comments from people stating they had to unsubscribe due to the rising inflation, and personally I really can’t blame them for making that choice.

However, this situation comes with the hard reality that, when it comes to which fat gets trimmed it’s likely going to be the smaller Substacks. Many of us are going to be on the chopping block before other Substacks with much higher subscriptions.

Now, let me be clear— none of us are ever owed anyone’s money. I will speak for myself in saying that I am never owed or expecting of people’s hard-earned money, especially given the current circumstances.

But this also comes with the truth that much bigger Substacks will continue to get support while smaller ones get pushed to the wayside. In some ways it’s the reality of how things go, given the Pareto distribution¹ and whatnot.

Regardless, there’s no doubt that many small Substacks continue to put out great work even given the uphill battle in gaining subscribers and financial support.

In short, I wanted this post to be a way of encouraging more support. The work here does take a lot of time and there’s a lot of unseen effort that goes into writing these posts. Reading papers can take many hours, and at the end the hours spent may not be put towards an actual article. If they do, it’s likely that many of the papers read aren’t put to use. You generally never know how much of your research gets put into writing until you start writing leaving a lot of uncertainty to the final products.

But I also wanted this to be a way of supporting other small Substacks as well. So many people continue to put out great work but may have difficulty in finding an audience or people who may want to throw money their way.

So even if you don’t consider supporting myself, please consider looking at supporting other Substacks. There are many others who would greatly appreciate any support they can receive, and it would help them immensely in continuing their endeavors.

Even if not through financial support, always remember that likes and comments help as well! Let writers know what you think and which articles you enjoy. For many of us we don’t know exactly what people think of our work unless someone tells us or shows their support in some way.

I’ve battled over whether to explicitly state which Substacks you should consider supporting here, but I think it may be better for other writers to provide a comment for their Substack and what they write about and what they have to offer.

If you don’t have your own Substack provide a shoutout for other writers who you find interesting and would like to support as well!

If this receives a good reception I may consider a monthly shoutout post for people to mention their own Substacks as well as other people that they would like to support.

Also, in the near future I’m considering creating other sections so that it will become easier to find articles. Medicine, Culture, and COVID sections are just a few examples.

Overall, I do sincerely appreciate all the support that people continue to show this Substack. It does mean a lot when I hear that people find the work meaningful for themselves. I’ve considered becoming a teacher in a past life, so finding out that people are learning from my musings and writings really does provide some meaningful perspectives.

With that being said, please consider supporting either my Substack or other Substacks out there. Many of us really do appreciate any support, so please consider helping in any way possible.

Remember that you can gift subscriptions to other users as well. Several Substacks have also started having ko-fi options for those who may be in financial straits and can’t provide a lot of financial support. Many writers/publishers would be grateful of any little support!

So please shout out yourself or others in the comments below!

Note: If you are subscribed to someone but haven’t seen an email in quite some time make sure to check your spam. Apparently Substack may be moving people’s articles to the spam folder…

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Click on the image above or visit the website at https://ko-fi.com/moderndiscontent

1. In short, the Pareto distribution used here argues that a large portion of the financial income coming into Substack comes to only a very small subset of writers, such that only a select few are making a good deal of the income while most others will tend to make very little in comparison.