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Tom Walker

Them: "We are launching a new publication"

Me: 😐

Them: "We intend to do journalism differently"

Me: 😐

Them: "We will be beholden to no one in our search for truth"

Me: It's a Substack isn't it?

Them: "You will be able to subscribe using the Substack platform"

Me: (closes tab)

Too many smart people are going to Substack. I want to feed my head, but I can't open that website without feeling somehow used. I hate that blogs have given way to "newsletters."

@lori What annoys me personally is that a lot of these people don't think they are setting up something that is approximately a blog (which they are), but something that is approximately an online magazine

@tomw@mastodon.social @lori@cambrian.social

A thing that has annoyed me the last couple of days is that I have friends to finally, FINALLY, decided to leave Facebook, Instagram etc (which I've been telling them for literally years) and then they say they are moving to Substack. Oh. Right.

I don't know what to say to them. I mean, it is good that they move off Meta's services, but if I start telling them what I think of Substack they might just...well...not move. I still see them not moving as worse than them moving on to Substack, but I might be confused here in my thinking that if they have started moving they might be more open to other, better, services (than Substack).

Substack seems to have emerged as THE blogosphere (or blogosphere replacement). I would think it's only a matter of time before it gets acqhired by one of the tech giants. My guess would be Microsoft, owner of Github. People setting up on Substack has "this is my JOOOOOOB" vibes. Maybe I'm the weird one who didn't get the memo that not monetizing your hobbies makes you some kind of scab.

@mathias @tomw @lori Super weird that they'd think Substack is a replacement for Facebook or Instagram! They feel like completely different mediums to me

I think a lot of people who used to blog now do Substack. I tend to take it as an FYPM statement, although it could also be driven by enshittification of Wordpress (which itself has largely evolved away from its non-monetizing users).

@lori Weird Mastodon thing: your reply shows up in my timeline, but not my notifications.

@tomw Scientists predict we we discover a second way to publish online in the next 5-10 years.

@tomw Same. I am supporting The Index because it is NOT on any platform, just web, no creepy cookies, and a new publication directly supported by users. So new I don’t have a super strong opinion yet but definitely interested theindex.media/

The Index.The Index.Truth in an age of noise.

@Jargoonco Well it's using Ghost. But yes that is much better than Substack.

@tomw Ah yes, sorry, the important bit for me was NOT Substack.

@tomw I mean setting aside sub stacks sketchy juxtaposition with questionable content, it just doesn't make sense that people wouldn't want to have tighter ownership over their brand and identity. Like... buy a domain, set up a web site, use something like Ghost (which can help monetize) and own your property. Too much lock-in and watering-down of your brand by sitting under the sub stack label. Just wild to me. Plus, a little bit of research and you should know that you are losing out on a lot of potential eyeballs and subscribers by going with a platform like sub stack that is pretty well-known to be reviled at this point yeah?

@tomw I have not used Substack, but have seen a number of posts similar to yours. Why do people dislike it? Truly asking to learn, not to start anything.

@cpsask @tomw Substack platforms some truly hateful people and have for some time: Graham Linehan and Jesse Singal come to my mind. And appearently they have some straight up nazis writing for them now. I don't have examples to hand, but Glenn Greenwald is oddly enough nazi-adjacent and he has a substack.

@tomw @natty What is so hard about self-hosting anyway? Or using some cheap commercial host?

They could literally setup a static site on just about any web host for a pittance.