I am somehow up to six paid subscriptions now.
(I still have gift subscriptions for all of these if anybody is interested)
The very first publication I subscribed to was my stepson Johnathan (aka Ace Hope):
He’d been working on writing a fantasy book for a few years now, so I was thrilled to see him pop up on Substack to post his chapters. Of course I wanted to support him in this endeavor so I bought an annual subscription.
The next publication I decided to pay for, I probably didn’t have to. I was enjoying the posts I was able to read just fine. But I'd been following Brent and Michael since the first time I was on substack in 2022. One day they announced a promotion on their annual subscription that was extremely reasonable, so I figured why not throw them a few bucks to show my appreciation.
Once I’d voluntarily paid for a couple of subscriptions, well, it was a bit harder to justify not doing it a few more times.
Logan Ashe Darrow is one of the people who had commented and intearacted with me back in the fall/winter of 2025 when I was still mostly talking to myself most days when I logged on here. When I saw the promotion price that she’d set up for her yearly subscription (less than lunch), it was an easy decision.
Even easier was upgrading my subscription on Don Boivin’s Shy Guy Meets The Budha. Honestly, this is one I should have upgraded to sooner. I also knew Don at least a little bit during my first couple of forays onto Substack. Then when I came back on this brand new account in September 2025, he was one of the first to regularly comment/encourage me, and even restack some of my notes/posts. Like the previous two, he ran/announced a promotion and I pulled out my credit card.
These last two (my most recent paid subscriptions) are a bit different. I am normally extremely anti-paywall. Seriously, I have cancelled my free subscription from many publications when I ran into one too many articles that I wasn’t allowed to read unless I paid.
Well apparently, my health, and specifically the subject of longevity is an area where I’m willing to make an exception.
Caveat: both of these accounts I first noticed due to the valuable information they were sharing in Notes and in their free Posts. I would not have upgraded to either if too much “good stuff” had been behind the paywall.
I learn something new and interesting just about every time I see Harshi Peiris, Ph.D pop up in my Notes feed. Seriously, she keeps telling me that things I already like to eat are actually healthy. How could I not like her? More importantly, I absolutely trust that whatever she’s telling me is based on real research (done the right way).
Along the same lines, Dr Adrian Laurence also regularly shares interesting and useful health information in both his Notes and his Posts. Most of the posts are free for everybody to read, but since I was already getting so much out of his account, when I encountered a paid post that also seemed to had information I would find useful, I decided to upgrade.
Note: this is one where I nearly changed my mind and cancelled the subscription when his Notes feed started to be occasionally interspersed with announcements about his new publication that would teach other substack writers what he did to grow his health account to over 44K subscribers.
This is actually a natural segue into the type of publication I will absolutely NEVER EVER pay for …
The Substack “gurus” who write publications about “How to grow your Substack”. I don’t want this post to devolve into a rant, so suffice it to say that when I encounter one of these accounts, I’m more likely to block them than to subscribe, even for free.
So …
What Lessons did I learn from this?
Well, the first I kind of already knew: I’m cheap, so if I’m going to subscribe it’s probably going to be when someone is running a promotion with a big discount.
But even then, it also has to be someone that I’ve had some good interactions with for a fair bit of time.
If these friends happen to have a paywall, like 90%or more of their content should still be outside of it … and that should still be some good quality stuff.
Finally (and this was a bit more surprising to me), I am apparently willing to pay for well researched information by bonafide experts on topics that I happen to be interested in at the moment … but only if they attracted my attention with equally compelling information in their free Notes and Posts first.
I would love to subscribe to even more of my friend’s publications. But for the time being, raising teens in two separate households (and states) unfortunately doesn’t not allow me to have unlimited discretionary income.
Also, shockingly, the two or three times a year that I pick up a lottery ticket with my energy drink at the convenience store, I never seem to win. 🤣
Think someone else might enjoy this post?
I always swore I'd never pay for a Ss but I'm up to three and one is NOT cheap and I'll never stop.
The other two I too got on sale and they're great too!
I have never contemplated that aspect of this a lot.
I don’t think I have ever been moved to subsidize those who request to be subsidized with those little reminders at the bottom of columns. That’s like going to a “no admission fee, donations accepted” event and having the host follow you around shaking the cup.
It is good that good efforts are rewarded but there’s something about sales pitches that leave me cold. On the other hand, Mark Twain used to do it, so who am I to get uppity? I might be indifferent to the whole concept of literary economics because my own prospects of cashing in are a little less than stellar.
What I think would be cool would be some sort of NIL deal for Substack contributors, the kind college athletes have — a pool from which everybody would benefit in some part by being on the team.
Of course that would mean somebody would have to administer the system and would spend much of the pot compensating himself or herself and would therefore need to be overseen by a board of directors, who would compensate themselves.
Then everybody would try to steal each other’s quarterbacks and a lot of the fun would be taken out of it.