Sincerity to Nonsense in 10 clicks

How to enshitify Substack

Mar 30, 2026

I’ve got a goodly number of loyal subscribers on Substack, and a few pay. I followed threads in March on several techniques for improving my ‘Stack experience. Most were bullshit. All will result in furthering Substack’s slide into the mess found on other social media sites.

What I’ve enjoyed about Substack comes from some of the honesty and spontaneity I witness. Give me that quick morning sketch, that lovely painting, those tender poetic words, and “ads” for articles that I may enjoy (“Oh, look honey flu season is over”). I want more great short stories. The struggle may be a story. Sure, I wished y’all’d read and love my stories and comment on them and buy all of my novels. That’s the shared vision, right. Substitute “novel” for “paintings” or “interviews” or whatever flavor of juice you prefer.

Someone’s article strongly suggested that I pop off to a separate site and allow that to schedule my content for me. The article came with a recipe for how to increase one’s followers: provoke, praise, parade, personality, persevere, proscribe (damn, that’s better than the original list due to my alliteration. I ought to trademark that nonsense). I jumped over to this a vendor’s site, following the guidance of a shill. I bristled at two things: first, the promotion of AI tools to write ‘Stack notes; second, the cost. That’s “No” times two.

Why would a writer who loves to write relegate the sincere job to the artificial? I like the craft I’ve invested in for decades. Kill generative AI. Oopsy sorry national government. I understand that you are now trying to create a special set of rights for AI. I’ll return to that below. I don’t want AI writing my notes, articles, stories. I don’t wanna read that slop.

Part of the shill’s effort suggests that posting more notes was better for me, for my brand, for the growth of my subscribers. In contrast, I have hated social media since the git. In 2008 after returning from a year in Iraq, I hopped on Facebook at the insistence of a client and with the hope I’d keep in contact with folks from “over-there.” Within 6 months, I learned I hated FB and that FB was the worst way of keeping in touch with people who spend their lives not sharing private information publicly. A decade ago, I gave the little bird a go then flitted away. But when promoting a product, we (company) went all in with modern social media techniques for manipulating and messaging our marketing message. We planned, shaped, draft, then scheduled our microblogs. We paid someone young to reply and engage. Basically a fail. Might have been bad timing to attempt launching anything along side a national election. The signal-to-noise ratio prohibited engagement.

This recent week I then decided to draft a few notes. No AI. Just kinda looked around my office, my life, and such, wrote snippets that provoked, showed my personality, praised, and paraded my own work. I then took 20 minutes to use the scheduler feature on ’Stack.

Between Friday and Monday, I observed a difference on my Substack. I was the only one adding “notifications” to my activity list (little bell, upper right corner). I think we have crude phrase for this concept of stimulating one’s own self. It was a weekend with millions of folks outside. Spring sneaking in, even here where I can see the first greens of a daffodil below a western window. Instead of notifications from others, I got them from me and only me.

In contrast, I often read Substack during Jeopardy! ads and while nibbling my lunch. Sometimes, I read a bit during my evening ablutions and before turning on an audiobook in the dark. I heart some human-generated art. My hope is that I find a story that pulls me in for a nice 30 minute intense read. That’s gold. No scrolling, deep read! Instead, I scroll a bit, then give up hoping for more later.

New observation since January 2026: If a name pops often in my ‘Stack feed I give it less credence. If I recognize a name instantly in my feed (and I am not subscribed), I’ve learned to filter it just as I do with ads in NYT and websites. My internal signal-to-noise processor says: noise based on the frequency of your posts.

Positive Effects of Scheduling

I always schedule my short stories to publish using the article scheduler. I strive to publish monthly and lean towards the opening of the month (April won’t happen because I did 2 in March of 2026). My short stories go to 9.8K subscribers and for the most part I have professional (not personal) email addresses. This impacts my planning. Furthermore, I always record my short stories as an audio post (aka podcast “Trowbridge Dispatch”). I can only provide the permanent link for my audio in the written post if I previously publish the audio. Therefore, my audio goes out immediately with no notification email. Then with the link at hand, I paste that to the top of the short story then schedule for an early morning weekday release. For my efforts, I tend to get between 30% - 40% open rates.

My personal rules with my mailing list:

Respect my mailing list/subscribers, they are great people;
Never touch my mailing list except once per month with sincere and entertaining content;
Never shill shit except my own novels.

My list grows slowly, but steadily.

Until March 2026, I never scheduled a “note.” Scheduling “notes” generated the opposite effect.

Negative Effects of Scheduling

Scheduled notes feel scheduled. I’d previously observed this with my own filtering of signal-to-noise. I often sensed that some used tools to make sure they were in my feed several times per day. Ugh.

My notes feed in ‘Stack is not overwhelming. I can easily roll back about a week, in other words, I am able to remain current within the delusional algorithm that ‘Stack has for me.

<tangent alert> I wish for more variety. And boy, I wish Substack’s search process was worth a damn. Like a game show host, I want to yell “Show me short stories” and have a pile appear. I’d love to yell: “Show me lyrical poetry” then scour that for a good read. “Show me stunning charcoal, pen-n-ink, or pencil sketches of humans.” I don’t want porn, I want beauty. Can you imagine a user interface that was as efficient as on-line shopping. Select short stories, select language, select duration, add/substract options as easily as picking sizes and colors.</end tangent>

I easily roll through current postings. As I do, I dismiss frequent flyers for being frequent flyers.

I’m guessing that in our third-plus decade of retail internet content, other humans do as I do. We seek the sincere and eschew the nonsense. We filter frequent flyers, ads, and crap that demands our attention.

Negative 1

Scheduling notes to keep your content in my feed trains me (and other readers) to ignore you, even mute you because you are sitting behind a tool pushing content while not participating. You ain’t here. Why listen? Why engage?

Negative 2

I have used the at-sign and other techniques to pull in some frequent flyers. They are not engaging. It’s like talking to a billboard on the side of a highway. <tangent> Vermont outlawed roadside billboards long ago. Love!</end tangent> I’ve got this problem with spousal human: mouth open, ears no work. It feels the same with scheduled notes.

Scheduling notes means you are not on the platform. Scheduled notes can’t listen. Scheduled notes can’t engage.

Negative 3

We all recognize algorithms. Algorithms are naught but a pattern of repeated behavior. This is an algorithm: “provoke, praise, parade, personality, persevere, proscribe.”

Algorithms are not very human. We see it in machines and in people. I de-tune it. I expect others do too.

Be human.

My Plan

I will plan (not schedule) a note to occasionally promote short stories I have out there because “articles” are not well promoted in Substack.

Proposed Rights for AI

We honestly have people in the 2026 U.S. government striving to reduce the rights of human Americans: arrests and killings by secret police; on-going efforts to violate the separation of church and state thus encode one religion’s moral views as U.S. law; active efforts to remove human Americans from voting roles; detaining humans without charge or mechanisms for redress (as required by the U.S. Constitution).

Meanwhile, this same government strives to ensure that states and local governments can not curtail the advance of artificial intelligence. AI, as a tech, may get protection that no other industry ever had, including guns.

If successful, AI gets more rights than those detailed in the U.S. Constitution for carbon-based life forms.

Hmmm?

</end tangent>

I.M. Aiken, Author & narrator

“The Little Ambulance War of Winchester County” (2024)
“Stolen Mountain” (2025)
“Trowbridge Dispatch” - fictional short stories/podcast
“Captain Henry: 2½ Insurrections, 2 Wars, 1¼ Centuries, and a story of Love” (2026)

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