A struggle for relevance
Have you noticed that substack writers and Locals owners are starting to get desperate and increasingly trying to force payment by teasing, then hiding behind paywalls?

At first many, if not all, Substack writers were happy just to have people read their writing and grateful for those who were willing to pay. However, having sampled the income and in some cases becoming dependent on it, some are getting greedy and others are getting desperate when their paying subscribers begin to drop off or revert to non-paying.

The subscription model is flawed in that it's an all-or-nothing payment. At one time Google tried to set up an arrangement where both writers and readers signed up for per-page payment of a few pennies, but I guess I didn't work out.

To my mind that was an ideal system, especially since websites can measure how long visitors spend on any particular page or parts thereof so that articles that are read all the way down receive payment and those that were merely opened and closed again did not.

Paying for ubscriptions to more than a few of the many writers adds up to a lot of money and is unaffordable for readers who sample many different writers. As a result many or most of us don't pay more than a few, if any, writers.

I am noticing lately that many writers who were in the vanguard and had very significant articles attracting a great deal of readership have run out of material of interest to most people.

The panic over authoritarianism and the abuse of so-called public health powers died down now that what only a few knew at the time has gone more mainstream, stealing their thunder and making them less relevant.

Additionally, others have seen their success and started writing or copying material, increasing the volume of writing to the point where each individual writer becomes less visible or unique.

Artificial intelligence has had an effect as well because these days AI is competing for eyeballs with writers. It is possible to ask AI a question and, rather than reading through volumes of material, get a synopsis on any topic or even several versions.
https://www.howtogeek.com/whats-the-best-ai-chatbot-gemini-chatgpt-claude/

The problem of bias and inaccuracy in AI is diminishing daily as these systems compete for relevance and paying subscribers.

Although it's possible to run a woke AI or a 'bot that filters out 'inconvenient' truths, as they all did to start, AI readership tends to be the more intelligent discerning portion of society and users quickly choose more honest 'bots over the compromised ones, Forcing a trend to more openness and honesty.

As for portals, I have visited a few other Locals sites and notice that many of them have subscriber-only posts. As a result, I never go back.