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> This post didn't age well – 3 weeks later Substack announced a $100m fundraise at $1.1b valuation.

From the article: Newcomer says Substack is “pitching investors on a round between $50M and $100M that would value it above its roughly $700M last round price.”

Also: And if Substack does manage to raise that $100M they’re looking for now? Things will get worse.

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The implication of her article is that they’d have a hard time raising that money and/or that they somehow aren’t doing well - I don’t see any evidence of this cited anywhere in her post.

No, the implication is that raising such a high level of VC would put huge pressure on Substack to grow and enshittify, thereby ruining the platform for writers who currently think it's good.

In other words, their current business model does not support their valuation, which necessitates a pivot.

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