Is This Where We Write When We Feel Alone?

Inside the Substack ecosystem—where creators, ex-journalists, and meaning-hungry readers gather for something that feels real.

May 02, 2025

It started as a publishing tool.
It became a confessional.
While most platforms turned into stages, this one still feels like a room.

A month ago, I launched The Red Pill Files on Substack.
I came in for the structure.
I stayed because something strange happened: it felt human.

Substack now counts over 20 million active subscriptions—and behind each of them, a story.
A therapist looking for a space to breathe.
A retired teacher rediscovering the joy of being read.
A woman in Milwaukee who replies to my posts like we’ve known each other since college.
We haven’t. But I get it.

This isn’t just a publishing platform.
It’s something older. Stranger. More sacred.

It’s a modern-day version of those penpal letters we used to write in school—carefully crafted, stamped, sent across borders to someone we’d never meet, but still wanted to understand.

If you ever attended a school that was twinned with another abroad, you might remember this:
you had a penpal. Someone your age, living in a faraway place.
You wrote about your day, your lunch, your life in your country.
You tried your best to express something honest, even if the words didn’t always land right.
No likes. No screenshots. Just a slow, human exchange built on curiosity and paper.

That kind of connection doesn’t exist in most schools anymore.
Too slow. Too quiet. Not compatible with “social networks.”
Another piece of human contact quietly removed from the system—replaced with apps that train us to scroll, but never to wait.

Now, it’s digital.

And strangely, we pay to be heard.
Not just to consume words, but to take part in something that feels alive.
To support a voice that feels like it’s writing for us, not at us.

Because deep down, we’re still the same kids—
hoping for a reply.
Hoping someone’s on the other side of the sentence.

But what does it say about us—
that we had to reinvent the letter just to feel seen?

1. Who Are These Readers, Really?

Substack’s core readers aren’t just subscribers.
They’re seekers.

Statistically, the average reader is a woman between 25 and 34, based in the United States.
Most work full-time. Many are juggling professional pressure, emotional fatigue, and a quiet craving for intellectual intimacy.

After publishing nearly 60 articles on Substack, here’s what I’ve learned:

Most readers aren’t here for “newsletters.”
They’re here for relief. For resonance.

They want to be surprised by a thought they haven’t seen a hundred times already.
They want to feel something shift—not just in what they know, but in how they think.

Some of them read every morning with coffee.
Others wait for the world to feel off—then open an issue like a grounding ritual.
A few even print them out, underline them, hand them to friends like mixtapes from another era.

They’re not looking for dopamine.
They’re looking for a voice they can trust—not one trained to manipulate.

These readers don’t want content.
They want contact.

They’re sick of algorithmic sludge.
They don’t want another listicle.
They want to feel like someone is talking to them, not at them.

Some are curious minds who miss school—but not the institution.
Others are cultural omnivores—too skeptical for mainstream media, too tired for endless social feeds.

And then there are the nostalgic ones.
The ones who treat newsletters like penpal letters.
Who forward issues to friends.
Who reply not with emojis, but with paragraphs.
Who treat writing as a relationship, not a product.

For them, Substack feels like that last corner of the internet where thinking out loud is still allowed.

In The Lonely Century, Noreena Hertz calls out the systemic disconnection that defines modern life—how we replaced neighbors with notifications and ended up lonelier than ever.
In Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport reminds us that the answer isn’t to go offline entirely, but to choose better ways to be online—on purpose.
And in The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han dissects how performative transparency and constant optimization hollow us out: we’re seen by everyone, but known by no one.

What all three books point to is this:
We didn’t lose our attention.
We lost the conditions for honest presence.

That’s what Substack is quietly trying to rebuild—not virality, not reach. Just presence.

2. The Writers: Hungry for a New Beginning

Why do people write here?

Not for fame.
Not really for money.
At least, not in the beginning.

Most writers arrive at Substack burned out, disillusioned, or simply out of options.
They’ve been let go by media companies.
Ghosted by clients.
Or just mentally saturated by performative posting.

There are now over 50,000 paid writers on the platform.
Some are seasoned journalists.
Others are poets, ex-consultants, doctors, spiritual coaches, indie researchers, or parents writing late at night when the house is finally quiet.

I’m one of them.
Not casually. Not in the margins.
Substack is my full-time job now.

It’s a choice—maybe even a bet.
But above all, it’s a calling.
A passion for writing and investigative work that I’ve taken on as a mission.
A new life.
Something that fits me better.
Something more aligned.
A counter-current—maybe even a counter-system—in a world that never stops pushing for noise and speed.
Here, I found a form of refuge.

And around me, a whole constellation of other writers—talented, thoughtful, each in their own field—are building something equally real.

Only a small elite make over $500,000/year.
Most make modest revenue—$5K to $50K annually—but that’s not the point.

The point is: they get to start again.

There’s the retiree who publishes stories from her years as a union organizer—her way of archiving what history won’t.

There’s the laid-off editor who now writes a newsletter about silence.
No SEO. No CTA. (Well—maybe a tiny one at the end. We’re not that pure.)
But fundamentally, it’s about presence.

About showing up, even quietly.

And there’s the young mother writing about theology, childbirth, and grief.
Her work reaches 4,000 paying subscribers.
She’s not famous. But she’s free.

This isn’t blogging 2.0.
It’s something closer to resuscitation.

3. Paid Subscriptions Aren’t Just About Money

Substack recently passed 5 million paid subscriptions.
But the real story is why people pay.

They’re not buying webinars.
They’re buying presence.

Some treat it like digital patronage—supporting a voice they believe in.
Others crave a quiet moment before the chaos.
A weekly email that doesn’t scream, sell courses, or beg.

There’s the ex-pastor who tells me my posts feel like the sermons he used to write before he burned out.
There’s the data analyst who prints out his favorite newsletters and annotates them by hand.
There’s the grandmother in New Jersey who forwards every issue to her daughter with the subject line: “You’ll like this one.”

A platform that became refuge, lifeline, experiment—
and sometimes, confession booth.

Some readers come for the essays.
Others come for the silence after a hard day.
But most come because there’s still a part of them that believes in shared thought, in slow letters, in writing that doesn't beg for a click.

Substack is becoming a third space—
not quite public, not quite private.
A place where whispering still feels safe.

4. Substack Is a Mirror—Of Us

This isn’t about email newsletters.
It’s about the erosion of trust—and the desperate search for depth.

Substack rose at the exact moment that institutions collapsed.

Mainstream media stopped telling the truth—or at least, that’s how it feels to more and more people.
There’s a growing sense that stories are curated, angles pre-approved, nuance erased.
It’s not always about lies. It’s about the quiet disappearance of trust.

Academia priced itself out.
Social media drowned in dopamine and outrage.

So what did we do?

We went looking for voices.
Not brands.
Not hot takes.
Just voices.
People who didn’t care if they were trending, as long as they were honest.

As Byung-Chul Han reminds us, modern visibility often comes at the cost of meaning.
We’re overexposed but under-connected.
Substack isn’t a rebellion—it’s a retreat.
Not faster. Not louder. Just slower. More human.

Sometimes it’s lonely.
Sometimes it’s boring.
But boring can be a relief in a culture addicted to novelty.

Substack is not the revolution.
But it might be the rehearsal.

It’s where the downwardly mobile intelligentsia gathered—
not to build funnels, sell courses, or promise six figures in six months—
but to feel alive.
To write like someone was listening.
To read like it still mattered.

It’s where people come when they’re tired of being marketed to—
and start talking to each other again.

It’s not perfect.
It won’t save us.
But it’s one of the last places online that still feels like a room, not a feed.

And if you’ve ever asked yourself,
“Who would I write to, if someone really wanted to hear it?”—
you already know why it matters.

👇 Tell me.👇
Who do you read on Substack when the world gets too loud?
Which newsletters feel like they were written just for you?

Comment below — I read every reply. Like it’s a letter.

1. The 3 Hidden Economies Emerging Inside Substack

Most people think there are only two categories here:
Big-name journalists who brought their audience with them, and hobbyists writing in the dark.

That’s false.
Three powerful—and largely invisible—economies are forming beneath that surface:

The Retired Professionals:
People in their 60s and 70s turning decades of experience into paid archives.
Not influencers. Not creators. Just people with real insight, finally reclaiming a voice.
The Solo Business Builders:
Writers who don’t need virality because they’ve built intentional ecosystems.
Under 5K subscribers, often under 1K paying, but hitting $80K to $150K a year. Quietly.
The Niche Educators:
Ex-teachers, subject-matter experts, therapists, ex-academics—sharing deep knowledge in formats that schools and platforms wouldn’t monetize.
Now, they’re getting paid directly by the people who care.

This isn’t “newsletter culture.”
It’s the reformation of intellectual work, person by person.

2. Why Some Creators Hit $100K/Year with Fewer than 1,000 Subscribers

Let’s be blunt: most of what you’ve heard about creator success is reverse-engineered nonsense.

What works here has little to do with reach.
And everything to do with:

Positioning (not niche—position)
Retention (over marketing)
Consistency (but not hustle)

Substack makes this visible:
With 800–1,000 true fans paying $5–$10/month, you’re looking at a six-figure business.
No ads. No brand deals. No games.

But that’s only possible when you stop trying to be everywhere, and start being undeniably useful to the right people.

3. How Readers Are Reshaping the Publishing Landscape

They’re not passive anymore.

They’re not waiting for New York Times push alerts.
They’re not buying productivity eBooks off Instagram carousels.

They’re choosing to fund voices.
Not “brands.” Not trends. Voices.

This is changing everything:

It’s forcing writers to be human, not optimized
It’s pushing against clickbait, because now people can unsubscribe with one click and never come back
It’s proving that audiences will pay—not for polish, but for presence

When the market undervalues thoughtfulness, people go fund it themselves.
That’s what’s happening here. Quietly. Every day.

4. The Mental Shift It Takes to Build Here

Want to grow on Substack?
You need to give up three things:

The need to go viral
The urge to constantly promote
The belief that you’re behind

What you replace it with matters:

Depth over distribution
Positioning over productivity
Presence over performance

The best newsletters I’ve seen don’t scale like startups.
They scale like libraries. One reader at a time.
Each one staying longer than you thought possible.

But that takes emotional stamina.
And a clear sense of why you’re here in the first place.

5. Real Case Studies: Silence, Grief, and a Real Living

This isn’t theory. I’ve studied them.
I’ve spoken to many. And I’ve been living it myself.

A writer who lost her partner started publishing letters she never sent. Within a year, 1,300 paying readers. Grief became community.
A former Wall Street exec left finance, wrote a single newsletter a week on what money really does to people. Built a coaching ecosystem with no hype, no fake scarcity. $11K/month.
A mother of two started writing about theology, parenting, and rage. Not optimized. Not brand-safe. But deeply, painfully honest. Now read by 4,000 people—and paid by over 600.

They didn’t go viral.
They didn’t follow templates.

They resonated.
And that changed everything.

You won’t find this on LinkedIn.
You won’t find it in course slides or YouTube “hacks.”

But it’s here.

And maybe the real question is this:
👉 What are you really looking for here?
A tactic? A community? A reason to keep showing up?

Or maybe, like me—you’re just trying to write your way back to something that feels like a reason to be.