I hope you will share with readers where you end up going and some of your thinking behind that choice.
The last time there was a big dustup here, I saw much more discussion about why Substack was awful than about where else to go. I nevertheless moved a small website I then published over to Ghost but found some of its technical aspects harder to manage and the cost higher than my fledgling little enterprise could bear. So I shut it down.
We could sure use a small-scale publishers association. For one thing, we might have a wee bit more leverage with vendors such as Substack if we spoke as a unit on key issues. Perhaps most importantly, an association could help individual publishers avoid having to reinvent the wheel when it comes to figuring out all of the technical specifics of building a media presence.
There is something really unsolvably sad about this dilemma. The technology itself is not that hard, but it does require some skilled developers. Everyone thinks that small nonprofit should be able to do it. But, often - *BLAM* - the "circular firing squad" causes it to go down in flames.
The public-facing parts of such a service are easy enough that one skilled person (e.g., me) could make them in less than a year. The big problem for any site that hosts public content is moderation (if you take it seriously, unlike Musk, Zuck, etc.) Unfortunately, it can't just be left to the bloggers themselves, both because some of them are practically sure to be Nazis or other pernicious idiots and because for the ones that aren't, if they allow comments, moderating them is apt to be a heavy burden if they have to shoulder it all themselves. That's the part I don't know how to solve easily or cheaply. It's tempting to think "AI" could help, but I've seen too much BS from "AI" to put much faith in that idea.
Glad to see you make the move. The last round of funding took almost 2 years to close, and the funders have leverage, and want to see progress on the path to profitability (or at least a leveraged exit). SS's business never really made sense, and them adding the audio, video, and other features greatly increased their costs.
I left in July, as the enshittification was beginning to ramp up (I am a product manager in tech, and I was browsing their careers page, and it was crystal clear that ads, sponsorships and other badness was coming (I had no inkling of this odious linkage to Polymarket, but given the prominence of of Marc Andreesen and his penchant for gambling (I mean gaming) it shouldn't be a surprise).
Before I left, I had noticed that they began hard enforcing a ~ 2K subscriber limit for unpaid stacks, and now that I self-host on Ghost, I am paying about $60 a month between email fees and hosting costs. For me, that is an acceptable hobby.
Nazis are the worst. While it’s disappointing that Substack platforms them, I also think they are pretty easy to avoid if one so wishes. Writers with large platforms are not incentivized to casually embed nazi propaganda in their writing (most of the time). Allowing readers the opportunity to gamble by clicking a link is a different beast because the author is now providing an easy route to a potentially life ruining, addictive vice and then profiting from it. I dunno man. Sometimes, there should be friction between a person and their bad habits (I say while hitting legally purchased THC vape).
Yeah, real canary in the coal mine moment bringing the "prediction" market in the boat, but the trend has been clear for a while. I can easily agree that I hate Nazis, Substack or otherwise, but I am less comfortable with demanding others leave Substack to conform to my moral comfort zone.
Its never clear if the argument is if all the "good" people leave the platform will collapse, or "good" people staying somehow legitimizes and supports the Nazis. I fimd both dubious at best, maybe there are more compelling arguments out there. At least everyone agrees Generic You should bail if that is your decision. Good luck with the book.
If everyone who isn't a Nazi deserts a platform, only Nazis will appear on the platform. Why leave it to them? Non-Nazis who still use the platform deserve and need to see alternatives to the Nazi/MAGA worldview without having to go search them out somewhere else. And at least a few of those who may subscribe to the Nazi/MAGA worldview may yet be uncertain enough in their support to be persuadable. (This is one reason I'm still on Xitter.) If Substack gets enshittified enough, I may change my mind, but for now I'm sticking with it. If you don't feel you can, I won't sit in judgment.
Without endorsing the arguments, but describing them, there are two interconnected arguments. A "moral contamination" argument, that all platform users have guilt-by-association, aka "Nazi bar". And related, an "economic boycott" argument, that platform owner should be punished socially and financially for this moral contamination, in order to make them comply.
A big issue I see with the anti-Substack argument, is that I suspect "Nazi" is not going to be restricted to "Fourth Reich" types, but will ultimately end up meaning closer to "supporter of Donald Trump". While I sympathize at some level, that path tends to go rather badly.
Dave has already addressed, in previous posts here, why this line of argument doesn't hold up regarding Twitter, and his explanation for why it doesn't hold up regarding Twitter applies equally to Substack.
$0/month to operate a free newsletter that does not shove ads into your prose and does not demand much time wrestling with the tech is what got me going on this platform. The cost is constantly wondering if the lines I've drawn in my head were just crossed.
Good on you for the clarity. Hope I see it when it happens for me, in the moment and not months later.
I’ll happily put in $2/month. I’ve been torn lately because so many writers/thought leaders I follow I want to support but with most having the minimum amount $10/month I can’t justify it but I’d happily give $2 to many of them!
It had to come, I guess. I'm also thinking about implications of AI, which has the potential to magnify my output a lot, but with some obvious costs. Meanwhile, Cory Doctorow has pointed out some nasty contractual features of Bluesky, which I'll have to look at. Even Wordpress is problematic.
I’ve left, and returned. I’m a small account, I don’t monetize, and what I write here isn’t for $$$. At some point I’ll probably leave again, but meanwhile, I update my subscriber list regularly. This is just a mirror for what I blog on my website, and I also mirror to Dreamwidth (occasionally Ko-fi but I’ve found Ko-fi to be disappointing as a fundraiser).
What I found when I left was that I lost readership and…my book sales crashed. Significantly so. I didn’t return in time to help the sales of my trilogy in 2024, so…not making that mistake again until things really turn bad.
I liked your mouse-poop essay when you published it; I think it holds up well. I don't love Substack's management and I hate the VC/techbro crowd, but I can justify staying here a little longer for the reasons you gave that essay.
On the other hand, although it was costly for me to leave Twitter, where I had 10k followers, I left within a couple of months of Musk's purchase, because it was clear that it was fully & properly a Nazi bar. Many of those were bots or inactive accounts, but many weren't. I left anyway. I didn't bother backing up my tweets or anything. I just dusted off and nuked my account from orbit.
I recently got the checkmark for 100 paid subscribers on here. I rely on that income, and hope to grow it. So I have to think very deliberately about if and when to leave, and where to go. But I'm starting to think that by this time next year, if not sooner, I'll have decamped from here.
I've been waiting for you to leave Substack so I could pay for your writing. I won't give Substack a cent, but I will happy support you wherever you go.
Same here. This is probably a bridge to far situation for me given what I write about. But also a push to a move I’ve been thinking about for too long.
Enshittification/"Greed is good" is the name of the game.
You are not doing paid subscriptions, but there is something very fundamentally wrong with the way opinion and news is divided up per opinion maker, it adds to the fragmentation of society that the IT revolution is bringing. https://gerbenwierda.substack.com/p/substacks-monetising-model-is-part so there is that.
Oh well, I will just keep my wordpress.com blog/mailing list running.
I hope you will share with readers where you end up going and some of your thinking behind that choice.
The last time there was a big dustup here, I saw much more discussion about why Substack was awful than about where else to go. I nevertheless moved a small website I then published over to Ghost but found some of its technical aspects harder to manage and the cost higher than my fledgling little enterprise could bear. So I shut it down.
We could sure use a small-scale publishers association. For one thing, we might have a wee bit more leverage with vendors such as Substack if we spoke as a unit on key issues. Perhaps most importantly, an association could help individual publishers avoid having to reinvent the wheel when it comes to figuring out all of the technical specifics of building a media presence.
There is something really unsolvably sad about this dilemma. The technology itself is not that hard, but it does require some skilled developers. Everyone thinks that small nonprofit should be able to do it. But, often - *BLAM* - the "circular firing squad" causes it to go down in flames.
The public-facing parts of such a service are easy enough that one skilled person (e.g., me) could make them in less than a year. The big problem for any site that hosts public content is moderation (if you take it seriously, unlike Musk, Zuck, etc.) Unfortunately, it can't just be left to the bloggers themselves, both because some of them are practically sure to be Nazis or other pernicious idiots and because for the ones that aren't, if they allow comments, moderating them is apt to be a heavy burden if they have to shoulder it all themselves. That's the part I don't know how to solve easily or cheaply. It's tempting to think "AI" could help, but I've seen too much BS from "AI" to put much faith in that idea.
I will be kicking in the $5 a month.
Glad to see you make the move. The last round of funding took almost 2 years to close, and the funders have leverage, and want to see progress on the path to profitability (or at least a leveraged exit). SS's business never really made sense, and them adding the audio, video, and other features greatly increased their costs.
I left in July, as the enshittification was beginning to ramp up (I am a product manager in tech, and I was browsing their careers page, and it was crystal clear that ads, sponsorships and other badness was coming (I had no inkling of this odious linkage to Polymarket, but given the prominence of of Marc Andreesen and his penchant for gambling (I mean gaming) it shouldn't be a surprise).
Before I left, I had noticed that they began hard enforcing a ~ 2K subscriber limit for unpaid stacks, and now that I self-host on Ghost, I am paying about $60 a month between email fees and hosting costs. For me, that is an acceptable hobby.
To the future!
Nazis are the worst. While it’s disappointing that Substack platforms them, I also think they are pretty easy to avoid if one so wishes. Writers with large platforms are not incentivized to casually embed nazi propaganda in their writing (most of the time). Allowing readers the opportunity to gamble by clicking a link is a different beast because the author is now providing an easy route to a potentially life ruining, addictive vice and then profiting from it. I dunno man. Sometimes, there should be friction between a person and their bad habits (I say while hitting legally purchased THC vape).
Yeah, real canary in the coal mine moment bringing the "prediction" market in the boat, but the trend has been clear for a while. I can easily agree that I hate Nazis, Substack or otherwise, but I am less comfortable with demanding others leave Substack to conform to my moral comfort zone.
Its never clear if the argument is if all the "good" people leave the platform will collapse, or "good" people staying somehow legitimizes and supports the Nazis. I fimd both dubious at best, maybe there are more compelling arguments out there. At least everyone agrees Generic You should bail if that is your decision. Good luck with the book.
If everyone who isn't a Nazi deserts a platform, only Nazis will appear on the platform. Why leave it to them? Non-Nazis who still use the platform deserve and need to see alternatives to the Nazi/MAGA worldview without having to go search them out somewhere else. And at least a few of those who may subscribe to the Nazi/MAGA worldview may yet be uncertain enough in their support to be persuadable. (This is one reason I'm still on Xitter.) If Substack gets enshittified enough, I may change my mind, but for now I'm sticking with it. If you don't feel you can, I won't sit in judgment.
Without endorsing the arguments, but describing them, there are two interconnected arguments. A "moral contamination" argument, that all platform users have guilt-by-association, aka "Nazi bar". And related, an "economic boycott" argument, that platform owner should be punished socially and financially for this moral contamination, in order to make them comply.
A big issue I see with the anti-Substack argument, is that I suspect "Nazi" is not going to be restricted to "Fourth Reich" types, but will ultimately end up meaning closer to "supporter of Donald Trump". While I sympathize at some level, that path tends to go rather badly.
Dave has already addressed, in previous posts here, why this line of argument doesn't hold up regarding Twitter, and his explanation for why it doesn't hold up regarding Twitter applies equally to Substack.
$0/month to operate a free newsletter that does not shove ads into your prose and does not demand much time wrestling with the tech is what got me going on this platform. The cost is constantly wondering if the lines I've drawn in my head were just crossed.
Good on you for the clarity. Hope I see it when it happens for me, in the moment and not months later.
I am a PM in tech, and I suspect that soon free substacks will be littered with inserted display ads, and no revenue share.
I would also expect that up to "hundreds" of paid subscribers will also have that, but maybe the ability to share some small fraction of the revenue.
The big sites will be incentivized with significant cuts of the revenue to keep them churning out engagement farm-like content.
The notes app on my phone is already pivoting to a lot of short form video a'la TikTok, and it is almost unusable. The web feed is better ... for now
You might want to check out Tom Cox's experience of moving from substack to ghost and what he learned from it. https://open.substack.com/pub/tomcox/p/an-explanation-which-i-would-be-very?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5y0nx
Thank you for sharing that. Another example of how switching vendors can have unexpected complications.
Speaking as someone who doesn't monetize his substack, I appreciate the *heter* to continue with a non-paying subscription...
Waiting to hear what platform you choose.
Will go where you go.
Best
I second this. Godspeed!
I’ll happily put in $2/month. I’ve been torn lately because so many writers/thought leaders I follow I want to support but with most having the minimum amount $10/month I can’t justify it but I’d happily give $2 to many of them!
I look forward to seeing where you go.
It had to come, I guess. I'm also thinking about implications of AI, which has the potential to magnify my output a lot, but with some obvious costs. Meanwhile, Cory Doctorow has pointed out some nasty contractual features of Bluesky, which I'll have to look at. Even Wordpress is problematic.
What's problematic about Wordpress?
Here are a couple of links. I haven't worked out the rights and wrongs
https://joshcollinsworth.com/blog/fire-matt
https://www.techinasia.com/news/wordpress-com-owner-automattic-lays-of-280-over-legal-challenges
I’ve left, and returned. I’m a small account, I don’t monetize, and what I write here isn’t for $$$. At some point I’ll probably leave again, but meanwhile, I update my subscriber list regularly. This is just a mirror for what I blog on my website, and I also mirror to Dreamwidth (occasionally Ko-fi but I’ve found Ko-fi to be disappointing as a fundraiser).
What I found when I left was that I lost readership and…my book sales crashed. Significantly so. I didn’t return in time to help the sales of my trilogy in 2024, so…not making that mistake again until things really turn bad.
Also, all those people who claimed to be following once I left?
Zero followthrough.
I liked your mouse-poop essay when you published it; I think it holds up well. I don't love Substack's management and I hate the VC/techbro crowd, but I can justify staying here a little longer for the reasons you gave that essay.
On the other hand, although it was costly for me to leave Twitter, where I had 10k followers, I left within a couple of months of Musk's purchase, because it was clear that it was fully & properly a Nazi bar. Many of those were bots or inactive accounts, but many weren't. I left anyway. I didn't bother backing up my tweets or anything. I just dusted off and nuked my account from orbit.
I recently got the checkmark for 100 paid subscribers on here. I rely on that income, and hope to grow it. So I have to think very deliberately about if and when to leave, and where to go. But I'm starting to think that by this time next year, if not sooner, I'll have decamped from here.
I've been waiting for you to leave Substack so I could pay for your writing. I won't give Substack a cent, but I will happy support you wherever you go.
Same here. This is probably a bridge to far situation for me given what I write about. But also a push to a move I’ve been thinking about for too long.
See you on the other side, with a subscription.
Enshittification/"Greed is good" is the name of the game.
You are not doing paid subscriptions, but there is something very fundamentally wrong with the way opinion and news is divided up per opinion maker, it adds to the fragmentation of society that the IT revolution is bringing. https://gerbenwierda.substack.com/p/substacks-monetising-model-is-part so there is that.
Oh well, I will just keep my wordpress.com blog/mailing list running.