For writers with no audience, Substack may work. But several folks left after the Nazi business and did an analysis of their new platform vs the old platform and they found that Substack’s discoverability features didn’t generate enough paying subscribers to make the 10% fee worth it. I think both Garbage Day and Platformer had this experience. 

My point being I’m not sure they have figured out the model or the UI to counter the pattern of everything on the internet is free.