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)
@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).
@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 https://www.theindex.media/
@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.