A friend of the blog told me a story about a Substacker who uses AI to summarize books and then publishes AI-generated content about those summaries, never reading the books herself, and yet has a ton of followers. I’d guess at least some of those are purchased, betting that a high follower count will beget more followers by suggesting clout and credibility she didn’t earn as a reader talking to fellow readers. And followers aren’t subscribers, but that’s the business bet.

People are lookie-loos, they get curious when something is doing numbers and creating activity, so inflating follower counts is a real and persistent strategy. None of this is new. But best practices still hold regardless of which technologies you layer on top. Marketing erodes trust when it prioritizes short-term gains over honesty and reliability.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

It’s strange to live in a time when you can’t reliably distinguish someone who has engaged with ideas from someone who automated the appearance of engaging with them.