Once, great thinkers communicated and collaborated primarily through writing - through correspondence. Their formalized works - books, essays - often arose from this process and in conversation with their peers' works. So, Adler's Great Conversation. I think Substack can be used in such a way, but of course, it requires the intention to do so.
The problem with a "platform" is that, like its physical namesake, it invokes the idea that one (or perhaps a few) can stand atop it and shout down at everyone else (and that, in some way, they have the right to do so). The mass below can of course cheer and boo and occasionally take up a pitchfork, but it seems an unequal exchange. If you can call it an exchange at all! However, there are other things that happen on platforms - debates and panel discussions. These sorts of things do not, of course, mean everyone can participate willy nilly, but it does widen the playing field, so to speak. And I do believe there is something nice about being on a platform for a debate - it makes it public, observable. Perhaps this is what your middle should be about.
Once, great thinkers communicated and collaborated primarily through writing - through correspondence. Their formalized works - books, essays - often arose from this process and in conversation with their peers' works. So, Adler's Great Conversation. I think Substack can be used in such a way, but of course, it requires the intention to do so.
The problem with a "platform" is that, like its physical namesake, it invokes the idea that one (or perhaps a few) can stand atop it and shout down at everyone else (and that, in some way, they have the right to do so). The mass below can of course cheer and boo and occasionally take up a pitchfork, but it seems an unequal exchange. If you can call it an exchange at all! However, there are other things that happen on platforms - debates and panel discussions. These sorts of things do not, of course, mean everyone can participate willy nilly, but it does widen the playing field, so to speak. And I do believe there is something nice about being on a platform for a debate - it makes it public, observable. Perhaps this is what your middle should be about.