The 10 Most Popular Articles from The Honest Broker (2021-2026)
In celebration of my fifth anniversary on Substack
Five years ago today, I launched The Honest Broker with lofty dreams but low expectations.
Back then, few people had heard of Substack—the name sounded like something in the engine room of the starship Enterprise. We’re going at Warp Nine on the Substack, captain, I don’t know if she can take any more. So I kept having to explain to people what a Substack actually was, and why I was shifting my focus to this new unproven platform.
To be honest, I also had to keep explaining it to myself. It sometimes felt like I was chasing a dream, not a reality—pursuing an elusive vision of a writing vocation beyond agents, editors, pitches, word counts, and constraining assignments.
I was a successful author of books back then, and (if I’m totally honest) probably too old to reinvent myself. There was a genuine risk I’d tarnish my reputation if I shifted to this new platform, and stumbled. And there are plenty of ways to stumble when you enter the do-it-yourself world of self publishing.
But I wanted that freedom to define my own vocation. And Substack was my best (maybe my only) chance to get to Warp Nine and beyond on my own terms.
Failure is not an option, I told myself. That meant I had to put all my energy into this unproven venture—just to avoid the downside. So I stopped taking all freelancing assignments. I stopped pitching books and articles to editors. As they say in Texas hold ‘em, I was all in, pushing every last chip into the center of the table.
At the end of the first day, I had three subscribers. Okay, at least that was a start.
Before I knew it, I was off on a wild roller coaster ride. In the aftermath, everything changed.
I started taking chances with my writing that I’d never even considered before. I wrote with a degree of self-disclosure and honesty that left me feeling somewhat exposed. But when you start writing directly for readers, without intermediaries, that begins to happen naturally. Above all, I decide to treat the reader as a trusted friend—with the hope that you might extend the same courtesy to me.
And guess what? I have almost 300,000 friends now. You can call them subscribers, if you want—but it feels more like a community here than a periodical. And that might just be the best part of it.
If you want to support my work, please take out a premium subscription (just $6 per month).
Ah, but the world also changed during these last five years, and this forced me into new arenas with high stakes.
The creative endeavors that are so important to me—music, books, visual arts, etc.—came under attack in bold new ways. Back when I launched The Honest Broker in 2021, I had no idea of the threat posed by centralized tech platforms and the AI slop they would unleash on our culture.
I soon realized that, if I had any integrity as a critic and advocate for the creative class, I would have to grapple with these threats. I would also need to find ways of supporting the struggling indie movements and emerging counterculture. After all, they are our only hopes if we want to survive outside the widening spheres of the tech command-and-control economy.
I refused to succumb to doom-and-gloom. I have faith in the transcendent power of art, and hoped to use my voice to celebrate the great creative work that still happens today—although mostly on the margins of mainstream culture.
All this gave more urgency to my efforts here on Substack. As it turned out, this is a good place to showcase indie creativity. In some ways, Substack is now the epicenter of the alternative culture.
Yes, it’s been a busy five years. And this birthday gives me a good excuse to look back, and share some highlights.
So below you will find links to the ten most popular articles from the last five years. These will give you a useful survey of what we do here, and why we do it.
I present these in rank order, starting with the most widely read piece in the history of The Honest Broker.
The Top 10 Articles from The Honest Broker (2021-2026)
1. The State of the Culture 2024 (February 18, 2024)
Back in 2024, I warned of the rise of “dopamine culture”—a web-driven replacement of arts and entertainment with shorts burst of stimuli. I included this chart, which went viral, and sums up the changes we’re now facing.
2. Why Tech Bros Are Watching Videos at 3X Speed (March 6, 2026)
The creative economy is getting degraded by the imposition of business and productivity metrics on artistic works—above all, an obsession with speed. In this article, I look at the popularity of ultra-fast techniques of culture consumption. But do you really want to spend your days listening to podcasts at triple speed?
3. What Can We Learn from Barnes and Noble’s Surprising Turnaround? (December 28, 2022)
I’d lost hope for chain bookstores—and then James Daunt took over as CEO of Barnes & Noble. He loves books, and made brave moves to put readers first. He stopped taking financial incentives from publishers. He gave freedom to people working in the stores to promote books they believed in, and not those with the biggest kickbacks. He refused to dumb-down offerings.
Customers took notice. After years of struggling for survival, Barnes & Noble is growing again. Executives in music, movies and other culture businesses ought to learn from this case study.
4. What’s Happening to Students? (March 21, 2025)
I start this article with testimony from a teacher:
You guys don’t know what’s going on in education right now. That’s fine—how could you know unless you were working in it? But I think that you need to know….
First of all the kids have no ability to be bored whatsoever. They live on their phones. And they’re just fed a constant stream of dopamine from the minute their eyes wake up in the morning until they go to sleep at night.
Because they are in a constant state of dopamine withdrawal at school, they behave like addicts. They’re super emotional. The smallest things set them off.
When you are standing in front of them trying to teach, they’re vacant. They have no ability to tune in….
They’re not there.
And they have a level of apathy that I’ve never seen before in my whole career. Punishments don’t work because they don’t care about them. They don’t care about grades. They don’t care about college.
Let me make clear: I don’t blame the students (or the teachers). Here, again, the root cause is dysfunctional technology implemented in a mad rush without regard to consequences.
5. The Ten Warning Signs (June 7, 2025)
Society cannot survive without a trustworthy system for preserving and protecting our accumulated learning and wisdom from the past. But in just the last few months, we see ominous signs of a collapse in the knowledge system.
How did this happen? And what can we do about it?
6. My 8 Best Techniques for Evaluating Character (January 18, 2023)
Every once in a while, I write an advice column. They are surprisingly popular—which is a shock to my family members. I give them free advice all the time, and they fail somehow to recognize what a boon this is.
But readers here are more receptive, or perhaps just more polite. In any event, this article on how to judge character is one of the most popular all-time articles on The Honest Broker.
7. The Force-Feeding of AI on an Unwilling Public (July 5, 2025)
Not long ago, consumers were invited to purchase hot new tech products, and were excited about the opportunity. Not anymore. Now AI is forced on us everywhere.
Instead of customer service, I get a bot, not a person. When I stream music, bot slop is served up by the platform. When I want to write an email, a bot intrudes. Microsoft not only bundles unwanted AI with its software, but then forces a price increase on me for the privilege of using something I don’t even want.
This is stirring up an intense backlash from the general public. But will AI companies read the room? Or will the force-feeding of AI continue?
8. The World’s Largest Search Doesn’t Want You to Search (February 19, 2025)
The big Internet platforms are now all oxymorons. ChatGPT makes you less likely to chat with family and friends. Social media stops you from having a social life. Relationship apps undermine your relationships. And now we have the latest paradox—the search engine that doesn’t want you to search.
9. The Ugly Truth About Spotify Is Finally Revealed (December 19, 2024)
For two years, I published a series of articles about disturbing practices at Spotify. But it was hard to find out what was really going on—the platform operates with so little transparency. But, finally, I was able to get behind-the-scenes details from Liz Pelly’s investigative work. The truth was even scarier than what I feared.
10. David Foster Wallace Tried to Warn Us About These Eight Things (September 26, 2025)
At the time of David Foster Wallace’s suicide in 2008, I barely understood the implications of his warnings about screen culture. I was optimistic about the impact of the Internet and digital interfaces, and so were many others.
But with the benefit of hindsight, I see how much he anticipated our current crisis—which I summarize here in eight points.
Before signing off, let me thank of each of you for your support during the first five years of The Honest Broker. Hey, if we keep working together, we just might get to Warp Ten.
No doom and gloom in this community. Forget Warp 10, Captain, let's go to infinity and beyond together! We see you and appreciate all you do.
Happy anniversary!