A Note to Readers - New Feature

I have long wanted to offer a “perk” to the paid subscribers that doesn’t take away from the content offered to everyone. I am an old-school internet person who believes “information wants to be.” But fair is fair.

I have finally come up with something that might be of value. Each week, I will offer up a conversational podcast. It won’t be written out like a script and read, which is how I usually do it. This will just be me talking about stuff on the fly. I’m not sure how long each episode will last but will do it freeform.

I didn’t start this podcast or Substack as a source of income. I have never put anything behind the paywall because I started this, at first, as a way to write more freely at a time of crippling fear everywhere else. And perhaps to offer some relief to those struggling with the same things I am.

I might expand it to interviews, perhaps. I might do book reviews. Whatever it is, it will be unscripted.

At some point, I might do what Matt Taibbi and others do and offer it as a live stream on YouTube or Rumble. I might also do it as a video podcast at some point once I finish setting up a studio I’m currently working on. That’s in the maybe column at this point.

For the first episode, which will drop in a couple of days, I’ll explain why I call this Substack Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning. I’ll be talking about the Fourth Turning and pendulum theory in general and how it relates to right now.

This isn’t a pitch for more paid subscribers. It’s just a way to reward those who have already paid. Right now, I have about 14K subscribers; of those, about 1.4K are paid subscribers. It isn’t much, but I appreciate it, and I wanted to show my gratitude in a slightly more personal way.

This Substack — and Substack overall — is a work in progress. We’re all making it up as we go along. We’ll see how this goes!

The last thing I’ll say is that a reader wrote me to say two things.

1. Might the Stripe Capital that takes the payments for Substack show up on statements as Local 44? I don’t recognize that and am not sure what it could be. The payments should show up as Stripe. If you wish to cancel your subscription, you can do so by clicking top right where your image is, and then under “manage subscription.” It will look something like this:

   

   But you can’t cancel it there. You have to scroll down to the very bottom, where it says:

   

   There, you can “pause” your subscription or cancel it. I know it’s incredibly confusing.

2. A reader wrote that sometimes, when an email arrives, it says at the bottom, “Upgrade to Paid,” even when they are subscribers already. I think that’s because unless you are logged in already to Substack, it doesn’t know whether you are paid (since nothing is ever behind a paywall).

So, in conclusion, thank you, everyone, for reading, commenting, or those who subscribe, paid or not. And if you want to check out the weekly ramble by me, I’ll offer a short preview before the whole thing. Maybe it will be of value, maybe not. I’ll keep thinking of good ways to add to the subscription in the future.