Solve Substack's Tech Support Crisis

The Human Solution: Substack Service Corps

The Be My Eyes app accomplishes something simple yet profound.

It connects volunteers with blind or vision-impaired smartphone users in need of assistance. That’s it. You turn on your camera and connect to the app, then someone, somewhere around the world stands in as “your eyes” to help navigate your life.

In an era increasingly defined by artificial intelligence and the dehumanizing currents of late-stage capitalism, this kind of person-to-person connection isn’t just helpful—it’s essential.

We need a Be My Eyes, but for Substack. And not just for the blind, but for everyone. In a relatively short time this platform has joined the giants of social media, with millions of users, tens of millions in annual revenue, and a market value of more than $1 billion. Yet Substack’s expansion has outpaced its ability to properly address the tech support needs of its rapidly growing user base. Some things that should be very easy to do are impossibly difficult, and the support necessary to sort them out is practically nonexistent.

Substack is exceptional, in part, because of how many different ways one can use it. For writers and publishers in particular, the ability to thoroughly personalize every aspect of a publication leads to nearly unlimited questions—many requiring expert assistance. But the challenges don’t stop at the edge of the publisher dashboard. Readers looking to engage more fully in the Substack ecosystem—whether in livestream, notes, comments, or subscriber chats—inevitably come up against usage issues for which there is no readily available answer, and an AI-powered support bot that is woefully equipped to address more than the most basic questions.

Substack’s website and its app are plenty complex, but using them doesn’t have to be rocket science. It cannot be, if this platform is to achieve its fullest potential and become something that truly anyone can use.

Enter Substack Service Corps (SSC). I propose we layer over the kind-hearted, person-to-person functionality of a Be My Eyes app onto the infrastructure of a national service program like Teach for America. Technically anyone could apply for SSC, but as an aging millennial I feel most comfortable projecting this job primarily onto the service-oriented, tech savvy youth.

Substack must address the unmet human need for self-expression. When someone has something to say but senseless barriers prevent them from saying it, that is a deeply dispiriting, unacceptable failure. It is a broken promise.

Participation in SSC would include renewable, one-year commitments to provide live support to Substack users, including phone and video assistance; even potentially in-person help if all else fails. SSC would be the most fulfilling paid internship around; service corps members would be rewarded with generous compensation, including an equity stake in the company. After all, they will be improving the user experience and directly elevating Substack’s market value. It’s only right to give them a long-term financial interest in their contribution to the site.

Like any internship worth its salt, SSC would also include opportunities to network with leaders in media, the creative arts, publishing and tech. Virtual and in-person SSC meetups would build community among its members and circulate best practices, all while sourcing and collating user feedback crucial to improving the product. A critical mass of readily available live tech support will augment help from chatbots; it will never replace it, but the collective data from thousands of SSC conversations can surely improve it.

Substack may be a major corporation, but it is not soulless: solving its customer support crisis shores up the bottom line, but more fundamentally it would address the unmet human need for self-expression. Substack matters because it allows anyone anywhere to express themselves freely. When someone has something to say, but senseless barriers prevent them from saying it, that is a deeply dispiriting and frankly unacceptable failure. It is a broken promise.

“As a blind user, I frequently have to try and navigate websites and apps that are not as accessible as they should be, or even worse, not at all,” said aspiring Substack author

Andrew Tutty

. “Accessibility, whether in the physical or digital environment, should not be an afterthought. Rather, it is an essential element allowing the greatest access to the most people, regardless of their differing abilities.

When encountering accessibility obstacles on the web or in an app, the disabled user has a choice to make: Do I want to commit my valuable time and effort trying to find work arounds in order to perform the tasks at hand, or will I go elsewhere? I will go elsewhere. In this digital world, there is always an elsewhere.”

This broke my heart. And Andrew isn’t alone. SSC and live personal tech support aside, Substack desperately needs to conduct a complete accessibility audit for both its website and app. This is well overdue, and the resources are surely there.

Why is Substack the greatest social media platform in the world? It’s not—but it can be.

I have fallen in love with Substack as a source of community, as a platform of self-expression, and as a vibrant vestibule of insight and information. As someone with full vision, pretty decent cognitive abilities, and some sense of tech navigation, my time here has nevertheless included the kind of difficulties that, in 2025, users of a billion-dollar site can reasonably expect to avoid.

Let’s fix that. Let’s build a Substack that lives up to its promise—a Substack that works better, for everyone. To get there, let’s tap into Gen Z’s oft-ignored brilliance, creativity, tenacity, and concern for a brighter future.

“Whatever You Can Do, or Dream You Can, Begin It; Boldness Has Genius, Power, and Magic in It.” -The young John Anster, translating the words of a young Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

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