For those of you who follow my content here, first, thank you.

Second, there are some important things you should know:

1) this platform (Substack) is funded by Musk/Trump aligned venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz; Marc Andreessen is working with Musk on DOGE and is hostile to pluralistic democracy,

2) Substack is building a dangerous monopoly, as it is perhaps the easiest go-to solution for people who wish to create and monetize newsletter, blog, and other media content,

3) there is no way to know when or whether creators on this platform will be squeezed and/or harmed by the views of its funders. This is a risk I am not interested in taking.

Given all of that, when I launched my America 2.0 platform last year, I purposely chose Ghost, an open-source Substack-like platform that operates independently of any venture capital investors. I operate the America 2.0 platform myself and all proceeds go to funding our expenses — unlike Substack, which takes a ~10% cut.

I’ll have more to say on this soon, but long story short — if you’re a creator, consider leaving Substack, while it’s still relatively possible. Ghost is a good choice, but there are other alternatives that leverage the open web, such as WordPress. Second, if you want to support my work at America 2.0, please do so directly on that platform and not here on Substack.

I maintain this stub presence here because it’s useful to reach the people who use this platform regularly, but as with X it is wise to consider this platform as hostile terrain, and that will likely become more obvious over the next 3-4 years. Hence, this caveat. Thanks.

Dave Troy

Publisher and Editor

America 2.0