Anil DashThe lesson isn’t just that you have to get off of Twitter; the lesson is you also have to get off of Substack.
jxn@anildash context?
Phil Sherry@jxn @anildash Something I bookmarked a while back for when I see people asking this, so they can use it to do further research.
https://social.treehouse.systems/@adrienne/109904044812541476
just adrienne (@[email protected])
Dear smart, awesome people: please stop writing your smart, awesome posts on Substack. It's run by transphobe cryptofascists, it enables out-and-out fascists, and i can't in good conscience boost your work if you're sharing it from there :(
Alex ChaffeeElon broke tweets with links to Substack after they announced a twitter-like chat feature
https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/07/twitter-substack-censorship-retweet
Alex Stamos@anildash It’s a very different pathology on Substack, where the need to constantly tell your paying subscribers what they want to hear serves as your editor.
John Breen
Erik Sherman 
Because then your editors tell you what *they* want to hear.
Jeff Jarvis
Sebastian Lasse@jeffjarvis @eriksherman @jab01701mid @alex
@anildash
In another toot you show solidarity for Matt Taibbi.
I do not get it, sorry.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/04/08/elon-musk-censors-matt-taibbis-post-about-twitter-censoring-the-hunter-biden-laptop-story/
@eriksherman @alex @anildash Maybe I'm lost in the terms - a substack author is a publisher, not an editor, in my view. NYT and WaPo are publishers, they also employ editors. substack publishers are their own editor...
@jab01701mid @alex @anildash someone said that substack writers write what their audiences want to hear and I was saying the difference in a newspaper was saying what an editor wanted to hear. I wouldn't worry about whether to consider the substack writer a publisher or editor or writer. It's beyond the point.
Brian Dear@eriksherman @jab01701mid @alex @anildash Or, what they want *you* to hear (e.g. recent NYT headlines where they tell readers, “here’s what to know”)
Goofrider@eriksherman except with a normal newsroom job your pay isn't directly tied to how much you please your editors month-to-month.
Ultimately, audience capture can happen with every model and it depends on the type of audience.
@goofrider first, I was being at least partly humorous. Second, like any job, your success month to month probably does have a strong tie to whether your boss is happy with you.
Tonio Loewald@jab01701mid @anildash @alex NYTimes tries to be balanced and charges for the whole paper. It doesn’t charge a Russ Douhat subscription, say.
The argument that the NYTimes has a liberal bias is of course driven by the extreme right (ie the right, in the US). The same people consider The Economist to be a socialist rag.
Delicious Terrine
Chris Nelder 🤘
Avanish Naik
Just Call Me Frank 
@anildash the lesson is we should leave it all behind. Perhaps.
Dave Winer ☕️@anildash -- agreed
Tom Walker@anildash I keep seeing more people *join* Substack and it's a tragedy, especially since it's in the part of the new-centralised-blog-like-site cycle where if you're starting now you're too late.
re_chief@tomw @anildash I tried joining Substack awhile back and it’s just a miserable experience. You literally can’t stop it emailing you whenever you do almost anything in the app, as there’s no option in Settings to turn emails off. I’ve never had an app flood my inbox more than Substack did, with newsletters, suggestions of who to follow, solicitations to increase my subscription amounts, etc. I lasted like 36 hours before uninstalling
Gil Friend, sustainability OG@anildash And go where?
Chris Hardie
Lady Artemis@ChrisHardie @gfriend @anildash
Anybody remember personal websites?
Sure, it's cool to have a spot in a common room where random passers by might see me, but expecting that to be my home & the place from which I make my living seems ... I dunno, like the best my personal brand is worth is a booth at the mega mall, squeezed between discount dog abuse & the piercing booth.
I love when people have a personal website. I get the need for communal stumble on me locations, but also, more websites!
Matt Horton
wells lucas santo@anildash brought this up this week and people were so angry about it... say no to both substack and twitter for sure
Laurie Voss@anildash Obviously I think Mastodon is a sufficient replacement for Twitter, do you have a favorite alternative for people whose livelihood is paid self-publishing on Substack?
America You're In Danger, Girl
McNeely
David Emmett@seldo @anildash Patreon is an option. Safest option is your own website with a paywall. Only external dependency is a payment processor, and there are usually plugins for that. I use #Drupal and the Commerce License module for my website (which is my main source of income). I suspect Wordpress has a similar system
@motomatters @seldo @anildash most writers don't have the bandwidth to DIY. Just maintaining the website, even if you have the knowledge, would take up way too much of their time
@Langoustine @seldo @anildash understood. Just pointing out that it's an option. But you need either the technical ability to maintain a site or the cash to pay someone else.
Michael Vilain@anildash I just recently went onto substack and the overriding opinion here is that it's as much of a dumpster fire for writers as DeadBird is for journalists.
I didn't know if the people I followed there are very keen to keep the monetization treadmill going by publishing clickbaitish stuff. It's why I stopped following @georgetakei a couple years ago. Oh my indeed.
I was quite disappointed by @Popehat putting his meaty podcast in a subscription tier. I guess the days of ALL THE PRESIDENTS LAWYERS are gone now that he knows he's got a ready-made audience.
I'll see if substack is worth my time but the few newsletters I've read the last couple days are pointing in the NO direction. YMMV.
Matt ⎊ 
@anildash I hate this 🥲
David Emmett (@[email protected])
Twitter banning Substack links yet another example of why you can never expect to sustain anything over a long period on a platform you don't own or control. You are forever at the whim of the owners. The same is true of Substack. At any point, it could go bust or get bought out by a brain-dead billionaire bellend and that's your income stream fucked. Do not rely on a platform you don't own. #Twitter #Substack #BillionaireBellend
Janet Vertesi@anildash Yep, that’s why I chose to avoid it for the Opt Out Projectand roll my own.
https://www.optoutproject.net/why-this-site-isnt-a-substack/
william.maggosthey can't win the argument against decentralization. we just have to find high profile ways to confront them with it.
Kelly Guimont@anildash I submit that the lesson is to make damned sure you and your data aren't beholden to the whims of the person in the Big Girl Seat before you get on it in the first place.
Charles Johnson@anildash Substack has always been way too cozy with the far right. Another site that feeds and grows through deliberate anger and outrage.
galonsky
John Sundman@anildash Sure, whatever you say.
@anildash I nuked my facebook account 5 years ago, but this year I came crawling back. Sigh. For the same reasons.
Baratunde@anildash is that the lesson? Can you please expand on this, preferably in a Substack post or Note? Thanks
@baratunde will do.
Patrick deHahn@anildash @baratunde looking forward to your take on this
Ryan Singel@anildash
For folks with biggish size audiences or substantial revenue, my company Outpost.pub (a co-op) has experience moving them over to the open source Ghost (Lever News, Tangle, The Atlantic) and getting them custom themes and features.
Happy to advise anyone with a site of any size on options
Also Ghost(Pro) moves people's content over to their hosting with a one year commitment
PunnO)))@anildash The lesson is that you have to get off /all/ corporate internet services.
Samuel Path@anildash This man is so petty… I feel like my 5 yo boy is more mature!