Why Substack is Winning
The Failure of Modern Social Media & Where Its Headed
Modern social media has become an absolute dumpster fire of negativity and mob mentality. Rage bait is a common occurrence, cancel culture has been birthed and thrived amongst it, and productive people and businesses have been lost in the wake. It was originally created off of connection, conversation, and community. But instead, it’s devolved into the world’s largest echo chamber for nobodies. Where did it all go wrong? Well, we let the losers think they mattered.
You ever notice that the people with the strongest opinions online are always the ones who’ve done the least in their own lives? The ones with the loudest voices in the comment section are always attached to anonymous profiles with no real name, no real face, and no real achievements. Why? Because in real life, no one listens to them. They’re nobodies. The kind of people who get talked over at parties. The kind who nod along in meetings because they have nothing to add. The kind whose opinions don’t matter in real life, so they created an alternate reality where they do instead of improving themselves and adding value. And the comment section is their lifeblood.
For some reason, as a society, we then decided it was a good idea to take these people seriously just because they’re online. We allowed them to tear down businesses that didn’t align with whatever idiotic thing they deemed a human rights issue at the time (USE A PAPER STRAW OR YOU’RE A LITERAL TURTLE MURDER!). We allowed them to get it in their heads that they control who does and does not do well on social media, creating social media lynch mobs that would attack on the slightest off step. And we allowed them to move their internet insanity into real-world boardrooms and political spheres.
Is it entirely the fault of the comment section? No. But has it been a HUGE contributing factor? Hell yeah. The comment section is where the bitter and unaccomplished go to feel important because they’re only important in numbers. Not by creating, not by building, not by adding anything of value, but by tearing down people who do via the strength they gain when they can band together. Because when you’ve got nothing of your own, the only way to feel big is to make someone else feel small. People act like cancel culture is about justice or accountability. But it’s not. It’s about control.
You ever notice that these people who are the most eager to cancel someone are always the ones with nothing to lose themselves? It’s never the builders, the creators, the doers trying to ruin someone’s life over a post on X. It’s the nobodies. Because they have never built anything worth risking. They don’t have reputations to protect. They don’t have businesses to run. They don’t have anything of value that could be destroyed. And that’s exactly why they’re so eager to destroy someone else’s. If they can’t build, they don’t want you to build either. If they can’t succeed, they don’t want you to succeed either. If they have to be nobodies, they want everyone else to be nobodies too. So they sit in the digital welfare line of the comment section, waiting for someone to cancel so they can feel powerful, in control, and part of something bigger than themselves for even just a minute.
Social media wasn’t supposed to work this way. In the early days, it was about sharing ideas, about making connections. It was tied to real life and had real value. But then the platforms figured something out—the losers, the bitter, the permanently offended? They stick around longer than the builders. The guy who drops an insightful post, shares value, and moves on? He doesn’t spend 10 hours doom-scrolling because he has a business to get back to running, a relationship to pour energy into, and a life to enjoy. But the guy who hates himself and needs to dunk on strangers to feel alive? He never logs off. So the algorithm changed. It became an outrage machine. It made the comment section the mob’s domain. Not to elevate good ideas, not to encourage positive discussion, but to keep the most miserable people engaged for as long as possible. The comment section became the public square for bitter nobodies. Cancel culture and the 24/7 outrage cycle became the only way they could feel powerful.
But, the problem is that the platforms used the builders up. They thought they could treat the creators and doers like a renewable resource. That no matter how many got canceled, banned, or silenced, more would keep coming. They were wrong. They didn’t realize that when all the builders leave, there’s nothing to draw people to the platform in the first place. All that’s left is fartcoin69 arguing with bot7000, screaming at each other into the void about whose mom is fatter.
That’s why Substack is winning. Because people are craving substance again. They’re tired of the mob, tired of outrage, and tired of hearing from people who’ve never built anything. The next big rise of social media? It won’t be built for the mob. It won’t be designed to reward outrage, bitterness, and anonymous losers. It’ll be built for the builders. It will utilize things like ghost metrics. No public comment counts. No visible like ratios. No scoreboard for the anonymous to swarm and feel powerful for five minutes before going back to their empty, unfulfilling lives. Just content standing on its own merit. You either enjoy it or you don’t. No artificial boosts from outrage, no manufactured drama. Just real value, real execution, real ideas. Because not every opinion is worth listening to. In fact, most of them aren’t. And the internet forgot that. The future doesn’t belong to the bitter, the anonymous, the people who only exist to criticize. It belongs to the ones who build. And the platforms that recognize that? They’re the ones that will win.
Refuse to kneel. Keep building.
Elizabeth Duffy