Mastodawn

There is a Fediverse alternative to Substack called Ghost. It allows you to host blogs and newsletters in a very similar way to Substack, but it has much less problematic management and you can host your own Ghost-powered site if you want to.

Lots more info about Ghost in the guide at:

➡️ https://fedi.tips/ghost-blogs-and-newsletters-on-the-fediverse

Would also highly recommend the article by @molly0xfff which outlines the advantages of Ghost over Substack:

➡️ https://www.citationneeded.news/substack-to-self-hosted-ghost

#FediTips #Ghost #Substack #Alternatives

Ghost: Blogs and newsletters on the Fediverse | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse

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Mark Wyner Won’t Comply

3d ago

@FediTips

The most important advantage being that you’re not supporting literal nazis. 😉

@molly0xfff

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shac ron ₪‎3d ago

@FediTips “First things first, I needed a server for Ghost.” Welp,

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Fedi.Tips 3d ago

@shac

You don't need to be techy to have your own Ghost instance, there are managed hosting providers offering Ghost which will do the technical stuff. I've linked to a couple of these in the guide.

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Gator 🐊2d ago

@shac Managed Hosting is available, including by the company itself if you don't want to bother looking for cheaper alternatives.

@FediTips

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Lou Reynolds 3d ago

@FediTips @molly0xfff unfortunately these days substack is more of a video service that just a blog / newsletter. Wish we had a good alternative...

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Strypey 2d ago

@lou
> substack is more of a video service that just a blog / newsletter

Ghost already supports podcasts, if video isn't an option I'm guessing it's on the roadmap. If not, you can definitely host your videos on a PeerTube channel, and throw links into posts in Ghost, creating embeds that are just as good from a web reader POV.

Not sure how video could be sent by email, so sounds like SS is abandoning being a newsletter host, and following the standard VC pivot path.

@FediTips @molly0xfff

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Lou Reynolds 2d ago

@strypey @FediTips @molly0xfff thanks, I understand that video can be embedded in posts, that isn’t what SS has done in the past year. They are now allowing creators to do livestreams and then afterwards also host the recorded steams for later viewing. I don’t believe we have anything like this currently in the OSS world. SS has blown up as a result. My point was saying ghost is a SS alternative may not really be true at this point.

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Strypey 2d ago

@lou
> They are now allowing creators to do livestreams and then afterwards also host the recorded steams for later viewing. I don’t believe we have anything like this currently in the OSS world

You may have missed my mention of @peertube, which does both of these things;

https://joinpeertube.org/

Also there's @owncast for livestreaming;

https://owncast.online/

Not sure if #GreatApe is still going to be a thing, but I IIRR that was intended to be a federated Twitch (@atomicpoet?)

@FediTips

What is PeerTube? | JoinPeerTube

A free software to take back control of your videos! With more than 600,000 hosted videos, viewed more than 70 millions times and 150,000 users, PeerTube is the decentralized free software alternative to videos platforms developed by Framasoft

JoinPeerTube

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Chris Trottier 2d ago

@strypey @lou @peertube @owncast @FediTips I’m extracting myself from as many projects as I can.

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Lou Reynolds 2d ago

@strypey @FediTips thank you and yes I am aware that these services exist but just because components exist does not make them packaged in a way that non technical creators can or will attempt to use them unfortunately. This is one of the key reasons so few have moved over here which is a shame because truly we need to help more creators find an off ramp from centralized SM. Saying ghost is a SS replacement is unfortunately not true at this point.

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Strypey 2d ago

(1/?)

@lou
> just because components exist does not make them packaged in a way that non technical creators can or will attempt to use them

Sure, this is true in the abstract. Have you tried PT or OC yourself as a publisher? What did you think? I've only tried PT as a publisher, but I'm pretty fussy about UX, and I found it pretty good.

@FediTips

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Strypey 2d ago

(2/?)

@lou
> Saying ghost is a SS replacement is unfortunately not true at this point

Doesn't that depend on what someone uses SS for? If they use it for a text+image newsletter as designed, then it is. Same if they use it for posting podcasts with newsletters as transcripts or shownotes, although @Castopod might be better (haven't tried it). If they use it to publish video then you're right, there are other tools for that.

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Strypey 2d ago

(3/3)

DataFarming platforms are designed as swiss-army knives at least partly to make them complicated and expensive to build or find replacements for. It's part of how lock-in works. If people want to avoid publishing for fascistern media;

https://berjon.com/fascintern-media/

... then they need to sit down with their community, evaluate their collective needs and what replacements can serve them, and move together;

https://disintermedia.net.nz/into-the-woods-we-go/

@lou

Fascintern Media

We are facing a coordinated international fascist movement that works with explicit backing from Moscow, Washington, and tech monopolies, and is propagating itself through its own media apparatus. Yet people who claim to side with democracy keep doing work to support Fascintern media because they misunderstand how it works. This needs to change.

Robin Berjon

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Lou Reynolds 2d ago

@strypey @FediTips I am working with some top tier creators and I can tell you they are very very busy publishing content and have zero desire to have to cobble together a bunch of piece parts to wade into a smaller pond. If they can’t see how it is super easy to try AND can see a benefit to taking the step they won’t. Unfortunately without top tier creators participating the OSS world will remain non mainstream.

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hexaheximal 3d ago

@FediTips Ghost is now slopware. I wouldn't recommend it.

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Strypey 2d ago

@hexaheximal
> Ghost is now slopware

Why do you say that? After shifting the Disintermedia blog to community-hosted Ghost I have a few grizzles, but overall I'm finding it a great improvement on the bloat of SS.

My grizzles with Ghost;

* hardcoded dependence on;

1) commercial email sender

2) one payments processor

* AP module has to be set up separately (how about a single Docker image that deploys both as an option?)

* no footnotes

#newsletters #Ghost

@johnonolan
@FediTips

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hexaheximal 2d ago

@strypey @johnonolan @FediTips Actively built with LLMs, see https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/blob/main/AGENTS.md

Ghost/AGENTS.md at main · TryGhost/Ghost

Independent technology for modern publishing, memberships, subscriptions and newsletters. - TryGhost/Ghost

GitHub

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Strypey 2d ago

@hexaheximal
> [Ghost now] Actively built with LLMs

Jesus wept.

Added to the fediverse.party watchlist of apps doing that;

https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fediparty/wiki/watchlist+-+fediverse+apps+created+using+auto-generated+code.-

Please let us know if you learn of any others. For now there's a moratorium on listing any app on the site if the developers merge auto-generated code.

We hadn't got around to listing Ghost, for a few reasons (backlog, and the headscratcher of AP support being a tack-on module), so we won't for now.

#MOLE #AI #VideCoding

@johnonolan @FediTips