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Substack is not a suitable alternative to Twitter.

If Elon Musk can buy Twitter, he can buy Substack.

However, Elon Musk cannot buy the Fediverse. No one company owns it. It is not for sale.

At this point, if a social network refuses to join the Fediverse, I’m not interested.

Anyone trying to build yet another proprietary walled garden is just a mini-Musk.

You do not need a billionaire or a VC fund to use social media.

They are just middlemen opportunists trying to insert themselves between you and your friends.

The Internet was built to make it easy for you to connect with others, and that is getting easier with protocols like ActivityPub.

You don’t need Elon Musk. You don’t need Mark Zuckerberg. You certainly don’t need any Silicon Valley tech bro to let you use social media.

To people who say that Elon Musk won't buy Substack because he could "barely afford" to buy Twitter: Substack is no unicorn.

Substack's current valuation sits at $585 million.

That might be an over-estimation because its revenue for the entirety of 2022 was probably $18.6 million.

Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion. He can assuredly buy Substack if he wanted it.

theverge.com/2023/3/28/2366047

I've worked for a social media start-up before. In fact, I was an early employee at a well known one. I know how this goes.

Founders start with the best of intentions.

But then VCs start making demands. And at that point, startups go for the fastest, easiest method to acquire revenue growth. That is, if they want to stay on board.

A good many of them take their exit as soon as it becomes available. Just look at Instagram and WhatsApp.

If Elon Musk walked into Substack's office right now (probably with a sink) and offered them $585 million to buy it, do you think their shareholders would say "No"?

Not on their life.

They would be skipping for joy. Everyone who owns equity in Substack would be popping open bottles of champagne.

Meanwhile, all those writers that Substack is paying will now be under Musk's thumb -- yet again.

This is why the Fediverse is the better choice compared to Substack.

Some folks might be thinking, “Unlike the Fediverse, Substack gives writers an opportunity to get paid.”

Not so fast.

When @TexasObserver was nearly shut down because they lacked funding for operations, they turned to the Fediverse for help.

Within 48 hours, we helped them raise $250,000 in funding—and now that 70-year-old newspaper still lives.

As a result, 17 journalists still have their jobs.

🤣

“But Elon Musk could buy all 23,000 Fediverse servers and do the same thing here!”

I assure you that my servers are not up for sale. And from speaking to numerous other admins, they won’t be selling either.

You see, for the same reason people play basketball because it’s fun—not because they want a $50 million NBA contract—many of us run and operate Fediverse servers.

But it’s amazing that some people can’t imagine doing things without a profit motive.

@cstross @atomicpoet @Lazarou

I'm not sure if capitalism is directly its own religion or if its a consequence of Christianity?

My current guess is that Christianity gave Europeans an excessive sense of their own superiority. With that they then went out and conquered the Americas and Africa with colonialism, and imposed the economic system called capitalism.

The three Cs seem deeply connected in hard to separate ways.

As examples:

Is it even possible to separate americas work obsession from the Protestant work ethic?

The American wealthy classes seem to be heavily invested in spreading prosperity theology.

@alienghic @cstross @Lazarou Just want to point out that capitalism is a recent thing, and has only been with us ~300 years.

Whereas Christianity has been around for ~2,000 years.

Also, like many things, the West appropriated Christianity from elsewhere. Ethiopia has been a Christian nation for much longer than England, for example.

@atomicpoet @cstross @Lazarou

The reason I'm thinking that there's a relationship is the Europeans seemed to have two major priorities when conquering the Americas looking for loot and imposing Christianity.

It seems like after running out of easy to find loot in the Americas, they used the wealth from that loot to start the transatlantic slave trade, and here again the slavers frequently used Christianity to justify subjugating non-christian populations.

I saw an argument suggesting that funding Columbus was an example of an early capitalist like activity.

The already rich Spanish royalty used their wealth to fund Columbus' high risk, high return venture in a way similar to more modern venture capitalism.

They lacked the legal advancements of the limited liability joint stock corporation, so it's not as developed as modern capitalism, but does arguably represent a capitalist like enterprise.

I think most people would agree that later ventures enterprises like the Northwest Territories company or the East India company were quite similar to modern capitalist companies and were major implementers of colonialism.

Christianity, colonialism, and capitalism are major themes in western history, and they all intertwined with each other in ways that my understanding of history is inadequate to tease apart.

Chris Trottier

@alienghic @cstross @Lazarou What you're referring to is mercantilism, and it was definitely a motivating factor in colonialism and well as the creation of capitalism. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercanti

en.wikipedia.orgMercantilism - Wikipedia

@atomicpoet @cstross @Lazarou

I could stand to understand the relationship between mercantilism and capitalism better.