I originally wrote this piece about Substack, but once I decided to publish it here, I realized it applies to HiveBlog just as easily. The same question comes up: what kind of “country” is Hive, and how do we bring more citizens in?
People migrate online the same way they do in the real world. They leave old places behind when the landscape shifts, when the economy changes, when something new calls them forward. This whole phenomenon fascinates me, so I’m pretty sure I’ll end up writing a part two.
I hope you enjoy the text.
I’ve started to realize that social media platforms are a bit like countries.
Each one has its own culture, its own unspoken rules, its own way of being.
Some people belong naturally in one place, some migrate restlessly from one to another. Some are old, some young, some full of promise, some quietly dying off. And like countries, they evolve. Sometimes peacefully, sometimes with drama.
Take Substack, for example. I haven’t been here for long, but it’s fascinating how emotional people get when the culture starts to shift. A single design change or a wave of new users can cause a full-blown identity crisis.
It reminds me of what happens when any place becomes unsustainable. People start leaving.
When the economy breaks, when the cost of living rises, when the “quality of life” (or, in this case, the creator economy) collapses, people migrate.
That’s what’s happening now with big creators leaving YouTube and TikTok. It’s not about trends. It’s about survival. It’s about money.
On TikTok, the competition has become gruesome. Millions of creators post daily, but once you finally cross that magical threshold where you can monetize, you realize it’s already too late. The money’s gone thin.
Because there are too many creators and not enough cash to go around.
Most of what platforms pay comes from advertising, the corporate money that trickles down through algorithms like crumbs on a table. When there’s more content than there is ad money, the crumbs shrink.
So creators are forced to ask: how do I actually make a living now?
That’s where Substack enters the scene. It offers something refreshingly direct. No ads, no brands, just people paying people. If you’ve got a loyal audience, they’ll pay for your words, your videos, your photos, for you.
It’s a fascinating creature right now.
Substack feels alive, morphing between writing, video, and photography, a creative playground.
But I can’t help wondering what happens when too many people flock in. How will that affect the economy of this space?
Right now, there are no ads, thankfully. It’s purely reader-supported, which is beautiful, but maybe fragile. Because no matter how romantic it feels, sustainability always catches up to idealism.
And somewhere out there, the next big platform is already being built.
The next TikTok. The next digital country waiting for migrants.
We’ve seen this story before. Facebook is already fading into the sunset, its user base aging, its culture stale. It’s like a country that’s stopped having children; the population simply won’t renew itself.
So what will happen here, on Substack?
In just a few weeks, I’ve noticed the front page shifting. Notes dominate. Articles sprinkle through like old villages between sprawling suburbs. There’s already a formula, a way to grow here. Even the “anti-performance” crowd, the ones saying close your social media and read 15 books, end up performing that message on social media.
It’s all a bit ironic.
And kind of poetic.
Maybe every platform eventually becomes a stage.
And maybe we’re all just performers looking for a new country to call home.