I avoid substack because of this. It's totally fine to email people about new posts, but at least let me read your post first. Make me interested. I'll follow you not because one good post (maybe if it's really good) but because several good ones. If your post is good I'll go look at others before leaving. If it looks good, then, and ONLY then will I subscribe.
But I can tell you there's a strong correlation between why you're writing a post and why I'll subscribe. If you're trying to hustle I don't give a shit. You're most likely another pseudo intellectual chasing whatever is hot. What I, personally, want is the experts. I want to see that depth of knowledge. I want to see how you think. I want to read a blog post where I get to know you, not some facade. Not everything needs to be a hustle. Find your niche and your niche will stick with you. If you try to write to everybody you'll end up writing to nobody. Concentrate on making me want to subscribe, not pestering me into it. You're not a used car salesman
As if you need another reason to avoid substack, they host Nazi content.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-s...
My favorite thing about substack is that it completely doesn't work in my 3-year-old browser. They managed to fuck up serving static pages with text via some ungodly JS bloat, I suppose. Blogging, of all things! It's the simplest form of web content possible!