Substack is a bit like twitter used to be: a place where a lot of writers and researchers shared their work and engaged in discussions with like-minded people.
Substack is free to use, all you need is an email address (Hunter suggests getting a new address for use only with Substack, since if you opt to get new posts by the people you follow sent by email, it can get gnarly huge.)
You can read Substack
via the web, substack.com or
via the smart phone app or
via email notifications.
Example: Ethan Mollick is an academic and an AI explorer of long standing. His book Co-evolution (2023) is still a good guide to where AI came from and how you can situate yourself in the AI world.
Ethan only publishes when he has something new to say, so he doesn’t waste your time.
The home page of Mollick’s substack is at
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/
Mollick’s most recent post as of Sept 10 2025 is at
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/mass-intelligence
Mollick’s Substack reads are listed at
https://substack.com/@oneusefulthing/reads
Note how short Mollick’s list is.
If you are signed up for Substack, then you can follow people’s substacks. When you follow someone, you’ll be able to view their postings. I suggest starting with only free versions.
Also, when you follow someone, you’ll get an email of each posting by that persion.
If you’d rather just look at the people you’re following via their substacks or via your Substack Home, you can cancel the email feed by clicking Unsubscribe near the top of the email — this will not unsubscribe you from the person’s substack.
Lawrie Hunter 