Substack mechanics from the inside: algorithm changes, growth without notes, payment infrastructure, the dashboard after a ban. Field reports.
Substack rewards movement — but it doesn’t measure what that movement costs the author. This part maps the difference between bridge participation and service participation, shows how engagement fragments interior time, and explains why visibility can rise while the work…
For five months I ran almost every standard strategy. Result: Substack doesn’t evaluate “content” and doesn’t evaluate “subscribers.” It evaluates attention wiring: entry → retention → return → external reading → next hop. This is a 5‑month report on Substack…