Despite good intentions, Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie are actually, unwittingly, destroying culture with Substack. Culture is predicated on a collective experience that a community has lived through together: a common epistemological experience that serves as a common cultural touchpoint for the proverbial water cooler chitchat that happens on Monday at the office. Think about Game of Thrones or Taylor Swift. Culture is created when we —a people— live and experience the same reality with the same cast of characters, subplots, and narrative arcs. What Chris and Hamish have done is pour gasoline on the conflagration that is our already fragmenting informational ecosystem. Substack’s entire model is to exploit Chris Anderson’s Long Tail: to connect various creators with all their respective niches and micro-audiences.