Perplexed

When is free "too expensive"?

After reading my friend Reinette Senum’s substack about “The Disturbing Death of Substack” and Emerald Robinson's article "The Right Way, Substack Has Gone Woke" about the control exercised by Stripe’s lack of payments and Substack's shadow banning, I took a closer a look at my own stats and found a similar trend, but thankfully, not as pronounced. I also found that my account has been put into the category of “health politics” they both discussed. Hmm. I changed the second category on my account page to “faith and spirituality”; the first is “health and wellness.”

But even more disturbing, I looked at the list of those who had unsubscribed. While I understand that people are short on time to read so many substacks and to follow so many social media posts, I don’t understand why many unsubscribed due to “price.”

My substacks are free.

I don’t believe in paywalls, and I don’t believe in posting articles that take 18 to 20 minutes, or more, to read.

Each substack (Eye on the Evidence and Walking With God) is only posted once per week to avoid loading up your inbox. Yes, we also post two podcasts per week (Morning Coffee on Tuesday and On Your Health on Thursday), but this gives subscribers a choice between reading or listening, or both.

Those of us who write substacks use the platform to educate and disseminate information that has been uncensored (at least until now). It is time-consuming to write to put out a good product and not use Substack as though it were Twitter/X.

That said, writing substacks is also part of a business model, a way to generate revenue streams from writing and product sales. Now that I am no longer seeing patients, this has become how I earn a living.

I appreciate the generosity of my followers/readers.

My plan is to continue to post most articles for free, and while I can’t thank each of you individually for your readership, financial support, and prayers, know that they are all recognized and appreciated. Continuing to subscribe to my substack and support your other favorite substack writers will help us stand against the tyranny of censorship.

That said, for the next few weeks, I will be working diligently to complete two books that have deadlines and making my way toward writing a third. I need to reallocate my writing hours to those efforts. I will be hosting a few other guest writers, primarily from The Tenpenny Report. So please know I will be back to writing original posts soon. I hope you are enjoying my most recent book, Walking With God. You’ll use it for years to come!