Interesting how in hindsight, this interview basically foreshadowed this exact thing happening. At one point, the CEO says this:
> And we made that decision very early on in Substack — that you’re going to be able to leave at any time, you take your relationships, you take your payment relationships even, and that put us under a lot of pressure.
Later on, this exchange happens:
> [Reporter]: You can leave and you take your set of subscribers and you get all their emails. Is that why you can’t follow someone? When I asked my team what questions they have, the feature requests came in fast and furious, and one of them was, “Can I just follow someone without subscribing to the newsletter?” And you’ve consciously connected those two things.
> [CEO] I think Casey [Newton] put this as, “I wish I could flirt with people before I had to make a commitment.”
> [Reporter]: Casey Newton.
> [CEO]: Yes. Casey’s substack is Platformer.news. It’s a good Substack. You should subscribe.
Casey's quote is linked from the article. Clicking it now, it shows up saying "this note is not available": https://substack.com/profile/241262-casey-newton/note/c-1446...