I really respect Michael Shellenberger and enjoy reading what he has to write. This is his latest:
Excellent. Problem is, you can like the post for free but you have to pay to comment! Not exactly in the spirit of free and open debate on Substack. I can understand some authors charging for premium content, but this is a post about a vital issue which should be attracting a lot of commentary from Substack users.
Come on Michael, you can’t be that hard up that you have to charge people to make generally positive comments on your articles.
I think when you get to a certain size and prominence and write about controversial issues, the comments can become full of hate and attacks and bots. Making them only available to paid subscribers is a way too keep them collaborative and constructive. Robert Malone does this. Not saying that is why MS is doing it, but I can understand it.