I think atproto offers a pretty compelling way to get the benefits of substack, like discovery, native social features like comments, quotes etc, integration into a microblogging network; without locking into a closed network.
The extensibility story is also really good, opening interesting opportunities for individual publishers to augment their experiences.
Moderation, which is the main point of this article, is a bit of an open question, but diffusing responsibility the way bluesky does is a more promising direction imo than hoping a single trust and safety department can make everyone happy.