A few days ago I found that I could not leave a comment on a Substack post I liked. This would have been a positive comment, so positive that I ticked the ‘Also share to Notes’ box. (I need to get a little technical here, so apologies to anyone not familiar with Substack Notes.)
By ticking ‘Also share to Notes’, my comment would not only have appeared under the original post, it would be copied to the Notes section of Substack. Anyone who came across the comment on Notes would have been able to access the article itself. It was like a Restack of the original piece of writing.
I know this because I have done the same thing many times in the past.
But not this time.
When I tried to post my Comment, I received instead an error message. Here is what it said.
Hi <my email address>
Only paid subscribers can comment on this post
Already a paid subscriber? Switch accounts.
I have seen this message before. Maybe you have too. Some accounts to which I want to comment do not permit me to do so because I do not pay them. Yes, they write stuff I find interesting and they usually write well. But I can’t pay everyone I find interesting. I simply can’t afford it. So, usually, I join up as a Free Subscriber and forego the ‘extras’ that come with paying. One of these ‘extras’ is often the facility of being able to leave a comment.
I don’t like this, but I get it. Account holders want to be paid for their work and Substack is a way for them to make money from their writings. So they offer something to attract Paid Subscribers, and being able to leave a comment is often one of those ‘extras’.
Sometimes I do pay. I don’t buy newspapers or watch TV. So reading Substack articles is one way for me to stay in touch with the world out there, and my monthly payments to Substack probably approximates to what I used to pay for newspapers when I bought them. That’s my reasoning and so far the system has worked well.
But not this time. You see, contrary to what the error message said, I am (or I was until today) a Paid Subscriber to this account - and my email address was correct. Yet I was being effectively locked out.
I contacted the account holder who confirmed that only Paid Subscribers could comment on his articles. Otherwise he could offer no explanation for my difficulty. I thought that maybe it was just a technical hitch. So I contacted the Substack help desk to find out more. This led me into my first extended interaction with Artificial Intelligence (or AI).
Let me explain.
Substack’s Help Desk is ‘manned’ not by human beings but by AI. In my recent experience, AI never takes a break. It never sleeps in fact. It is also quick to respond and does so intelligently and perceptively. But after hours of to-ing and fro-ing, it did not resolve my problem. It tried to find a pattern that would allow it to fix it. But there is no pattern.
Sometimes the comment facility works, sometimes it does not. Sometimes the background colour is a factor, other times it is not. I found that I cannot any longer comment on other accounts to which I am a Paid Subscriber. Hell, I cannot even comment on my own posts and they are entirely free. But even these problems are not consistent. Occasionally everything still works as it used to. As I say, there is no pattern.
A day or two ago I had a bit of an epiphany. In my dealings with Substack I realised that AI was looking at every variable, except one - me. At no point was I ever asked for my personal details and therein lies the real problem, the limitation of AI. It seeks to find a pattern in the technical data it examines. It will keep looking and looking and, if I had unlimited time and patience to continue to deal with it, maybe, eventually, it could offer a solution.
But I don’t have unlimited time or patience. So this morning I cancelled my subscriptions, paid and free. I am sorry to all who received an email saying that I would no longer be on their list, particularly those getting a few bob from me.
My decision has nothing to do with you or your writing. There is only so much a human being can take!
Exactly my dilemma. I do not have TV, my only weakness is darn Disney plus for Star Wars and as that’s all I watch and some documentaries . But as a pensioner and farmer who barely survives and have no time I just can not afford to be a paid subscriber so make do with free content and sometimes will buy a coffee if I can. It’s not “just a euro” for me. My spouse bought a newspaper twice a week but no more. A group who are still bothered to read the drivel will buy in turns and share and pass it around now. Sadly the AI story by its very “nature” is not human and thus we do not factor in. I have a bad feeling about this. Being off grid/ out of the Matrix I still find out things before most MSM folk do. But sad Substack ( as with everything else ) is choosing to go this way when People need jobs!
That sounds fair enough for me JP. You gave it enough of your energy. But will you get a partial refund for your paid amounts. Awhile ago I noticed I was no longer able to comment on Notes while on my laptop. My friend posts something every day and I like to send it further for him. I found I could write the comment but the box to send it was missing, it would show it momentarily and then it would disappear. I searched around and I can't remember, I must have asked the aether how this could be rectified (because I used to be able to). Someone came back and told me how they solved it and I tried and got it back too. I think there is a place within Substack that has a help forum