Blog•Apr 20, 2026
The Algorithm Doesn't Have to Destroy Us
In an interview with Hamish McKenzie, co‑founder of Substack, the platform’s subscription‑driven model is presented as a remedy to the incentive problems of legacy social media. McKenzie argues that direct audience relationships enable nuanced, trust‑based discourse and reduce the need for heavy-handed moderation. Substack’s emerging algorithm is designed to surface content that encourages subscriptions rather than ad clicks, and the company is expanding into video and TV to apply the same model. He also contends that this architecture makes Substack less vulnerable to the “enshittification” that plagues ad‑centric platforms.
