Below I look at some surprising ways Substack has changed the media (and social media) landscape.

This gives me a good excuse to recommend the new Substack app. It’s now my go-to source for informed writing—providing access to a smarter and more diverse group of authors, thinkers, and creators than I’ve found anywhere else.

I’ve now been on Substack for 30 months, and the improvements in the platform during that time have far exceeded my expectations. I didn’t know any music writers on Substack back when I launched, but it now boasts a better roster of critics than any newspaper or magazine. By the way, I’m also subscribing to writers in a dozen or so other fields (culinary arts, economics, literature, finance, technology, psychology, etc.).

I’m a heavy user. I must have signed up for almost a hundred Substacks.

Substack has also added a lot of new features during those 30 months. I especially like Notes, which is similar to Twitter but with extra IQ points. And I’ve also benefited from cross-posting, recommendations, and many other new features. I also applaud options I don’t currently use (like chat and podcasts), because they empower writers and readers.

The reality is that Substack is innovating faster than I can keep up with. But I like it that way. It’s creating an interconnected and independent media ecosystem here.

Best of all are the core values behind all this:

• Substack supports writers—who receive almost 90% of subscription revenues. This is the exact opposite of the traditional publishing model, where royalty rates of around 10% are typical.

• I don’t need to attract advertisers, and this frees me from the conflicts-of-interest advertising brings to other platforms.

• There’s no surveillance or selling of users’ private information here.

• I share my articles directly with readers, and no algorithm or gatekeeper intervenes to prevent our direct connection.

For these and other reasons, I’ve been an advocate for the platform. And that’s a good introduction to my subject today.

I joined Twitter on August 27, 2009. I only did it because my agent pestered me.

Our conversation went something like this:

Agent: Ted, you really need to get on Twitter.

Ted: Twitter? Isn’t that just for young people? I’m too old for that.

Agent: No, no, no! Old people are on Twitter too.

Ted: Huh? Like me?

Agent: Even older.

Ted: [Long pause while this sinks in.] Whoa! I’m gonna tell people to get off my lawn. I can hardly wait.

Agent: No, no, no!—you tweet about your books. Twitter is great for writers.

So I joined Twitter. And it was great for writers—at least it was back then.

But so much has changed since 2009. Even the name has changed. It’s no longer Twitter but X—like the spouse who left you and took the kids. (X is an absurd name, so for the rest of this article—and possibly the rest of my life—I’ll continue to call the platform by its original identity.)

The biggest change for me is the hostility between Twitter and the writing community. Almost every week, I hear about another writer leaving the platform.

Many of them joined fo