Melanie RichardsWhat I had hoped for: a modest return of blogging and RSS.
What the internet got: indie content behind Substack paywalls.
What the internet got: indie content behind Substack paywalls.
FWIW I don’t begrudge artists piecing together income streams to make a living. I do wish we could lean on more “open” patronage, similar to Open Source Collective. Openly sharing ideas, openly giving financial support.
Tyler Sticka@melanie Ugh, me too.
I still flip through ”Reinventing Comics” by Scott McCloud and sigh at the concept of paying small amounts for things I actually want to consume instead of doing the subscribe/unsubscribe dance with dozens of Netflixes.
odnes@melanie snowdrift.coop had a clever scheme for doing better than opencollective, it hasn't managed to launch yet though.
dizzyspiral 
🥥@melanie
I read about an initiative maybe a year ago, where users could opt in to give micro-payments to blogs they visit. It was either a browser plugin, or something built into the browser. Content creators would set up a wallet and enable micro-payments and then get paid something for their non-paywalled blog. I loved the idea. Can't remember what it was called though.
I read about an initiative maybe a year ago, where users could opt in to give micro-payments to blogs they visit. It was either a browser plugin, or something built into the browser. Content creators would set up a wallet and enable micro-payments and then get paid something for their non-paywalled blog. I loved the idea. Can't remember what it was called though.
@dizzyspiral maybe Coil? Sadly they discontinued the product earlier this year 😔 It was a cool concept though.
@melanie
That does look like it. Bummer. I can imagine adoption was hard.
That does look like it. Bummer. I can imagine adoption was hard.
Darwin Woodka@melanie yup. If you're gonna paywall the Substack article just don't bother sharing it already.
Charlie ⚡️@melanie don't count me out on that yet 🙏✨🎉
Stuart Langridge@melanie I mean, yeah. I am mildly pleased that substack actually does RSS so that I can follow such things, although I don’t know whether it’s a vestigial thing by one lone internal programmer or actual policy. And I’m with you on how people should get paid and this is one way to do it.
stfn 
@melanie sounds like substack is the new medium?
blake shaw 🇵🇸
cuan_knaggs@melanie "subscribe to our newsletter"
Hubert Figuière@melanie also a reminder that substack literally platform fascist by paying them.
@hub yup!! I don’t think this is as common knowledge as it should be
Ingo Rohlfing@melanie I still struggle to get the idea of Substack. I agree that writers can try to benefit from tools such as Substack, but I don't know whether it is worth it for two reasons. First, how many subscriptions can one afford if a single one costs 5-10 USD? Not that many, which likely means that individual authors don't generate much income. Regardless, second, you raise expectations bc it is paid content, so the bar is much higher than for regular blogging.
devolute@melanie A couple of new hyperlocal indie media outlets round our way are on Substack. They're doing pretty well r.e. subs, but I wonder… what's the plan if Substack change their business model ala Unity? Or become more obtrusive/tight, ala Medium?
https://youtu.be/TIe2xGTb0Zk
https://youtu.be/TIe2xGTb0Zk
Colonel Abrams - Trapped - TOTP - 1985
nerdseyeview@melanie THIS IS SO TRUE
V360@melanie while it definitely isn't a solution, i found out that you can add `/feed` to the end of a substack to get it as an RSS feed. bizarre that there's no indication that you can do this anywhere on the substack page though…
aah wait this isn't a post directly about substack!! apologies for that…
but yeah, really wish i didn't need to have javascript enabled, letting awful frameworks burn my CPU just to be able to read one singular article online.
but yeah, really wish i didn't need to have javascript enabled, letting awful frameworks burn my CPU just to be able to read one singular article online.