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Substack Notes Launched

on.substack.com

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Re: Substack Notes Launched

#51

Post by pickledish »

7h3rAm wrote: post #38

Social network must be a protocol, not a platform. That's the only way to gurantee free speech and cencorship resistance. Nostr[1] is proving to be a good first step in this direction. [1] https://nostr.how/

On one hand I agree with you on the "protocol not platform" ideal (and thanks for linking nostr, hadn't seen it before), but on the other I guess I still don't understand why so many are committed to the best way to go about that involving "relays" / federation.

RSS solved the "you fully own the content, everyone else can discover it via a well-known protocol" problem decades ago! Is it just that stuff like comments and reactions would be harder with just RSS?

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#52

Post by coldpie »

claytonjy wrote: post #21
coldpie wrote: post #13

For me, it's just an empty login form, and I'm not going to register an account just to see what's there. I'm sympathetic to the idea of paying for content directly (I spend over $100/mo on Patreon), but I feel like Substack has cultivated a nasty branding issue for themselves. To me, and I know I'm not alone, Substack is where you go when you want to hear some 17-year-old who got high for the first time tell you wha…

On the hand I know exactly what you mean about Greenwald and Taibbi (and so many other neoreactionary media folks), but it's also where I get great content from economists (Noah Smith, Claudia Sahm, Doomberg) and technologists (our own Simon Willison, Gergely Orosz, Molly White). The media folks are clearly escaping scrutiny and playing to their base, but there are many excellent Substackers in other fields!

I believe you, but Substack is clearly trying to appeal to that same base[1]. I'm sure there's fine content on there somewhere, but Substack's brand is so unappealing to me I'm just not interested in supporting the company.

[1] https://twitter.com/lulumeservey/status/1511376638487019524

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#53

Post by ALittleLight »

ghiculescu wrote: post #48

I love Substack. But apart from to mess with Twitter I really don’t understand the point of this. https://substack.com/profile/241262-casey-newton/note/c-1446... I’d a good summary. I don’t want to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters to see tweet (sorry, notes). But if you change that setup, it really is a Twitter clone with no upside to writers.

I kind of see this as the whole "Substack is trying to become Twitter before Twitter becomes Substack" kind of race. Twitter added long tweets and subscriptions, if you could do markdown formatting and inline images in your long tweets - why would Substack authors stay on Substack when they could post basically the same thing to Twitter and have more audience (or potential audience) exposure.

If Substack sees the above as an existential risk - which it might be if Twitter executes well, then Substack is replying by trying to do the reverse to Twitter.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#54

Post by rcarr »

ghiculescu wrote: post #48

I love Substack. But apart from to mess with Twitter I really don’t understand the point of this. https://substack.com/profile/241262-casey-newton/note/c-1446... I’d a good summary. I don’t want to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters to see tweet (sorry, notes). But if you change that setup, it really is a Twitter clone with no upside to writers.

They really needed this to exist about 6 months ago or whenever it was that Musk bought Twitter. There was a mass exodus then to Mastodon, and if they’d have brought this out then I reckon they would have done a good job of immediately dethroning Twitter as I reckon lots of journalists and writers would have jumped on board. Now they’re going to have to do it the long hard way and try and build the audience organically. I reckon they might be able to do it, but it’ll take them at least a few years because they missed the golden goose.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#55

Post by soneca »

ghiculescu wrote: post #48

I love Substack. But apart from to mess with Twitter I really don’t understand the point of this. https://substack.com/profile/241262-casey-newton/note/c-1446... I’d a good summary. I don’t want to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters to see tweet (sorry, notes). But if you change that setup, it really is a Twitter clone with no upside to writers.

As a reader, I like it. It might nudge me to subscribe to a few more newsletters even if I don’t plan to read all emails, just to see Notes from that author.

Sure, I won’t subscribe to hundreds of newsletters, but a few dozen might create a good feed.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#56

Post by soneca »

ALittleLight wrote: post #53
ghiculescu wrote: post #48

I love Substack. But apart from to mess with Twitter I really don’t understand the point of this. https://substack.com/profile/241262-casey-newton/note/c-1446... I’d a good summary. I don’t want to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters to see tweet (sorry, notes). But if you change that setup, it really is a Twitter clone with no upside to writers.

I kind of see this as the whole "Substack is trying to become Twitter before Twitter becomes Substack" kind of race. Twitter added long tweets and subscriptions, if you could do markdown formatting and inline images in your long tweets - why would Substack authors stay on Substack when they could post basically the same thing to Twitter and have more audience (or potential audience) exposure. If Substack sees the abo…

> ”why would Substack authors stay on Substack when they could post basically the same thing to Twitter and have more audience (or potential audience) exposure.”

Because they wouldn’t have the followers’ email addresses, which is a big advantage to Substack.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#57

Post by inpdx »

hersko wrote: post #34
capital_guy wrote: post #33

I've just checked it out and it's much closer to a Twitter clone than I anticipated. Now it's clear why Elon made the drastic decision to mess with substack links on Twitter. The site is clean and simple. I'm very disappointed in Musk for essentially ruining one of the world's great information platforms. Mastodon was just not the thing people were looking for. I hope this takes off.

How is twitter ruined? My personal experience on the site has not changed much.

Many people have left, including myself, due to imperious, chaotic, and plain mean mismanagement. Thus making it vastly less interesting and more trollish.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#58

Post by m_ke »

ghiculescu wrote: post #48

I love Substack. But apart from to mess with Twitter I really don’t understand the point of this. https://substack.com/profile/241262-casey-newton/note/c-1446... I’d a good summary. I don’t want to subscribe to hundreds of newsletters to see tweet (sorry, notes). But if you change that setup, it really is a Twitter clone with no upside to writers.

They raised a ton of money on a high valuation, spent 25mil to make 1 mil last year and are now scrambling to raise a new crowd sourced round because they don't want to get wiped out in a down round.

This notes thing looks like an attempt to pivot to an advertising based business model and I'm guessing they think they have "influencers" on their platform to bring in a decent audience.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#60

Post by inpdx »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #45
7h3rAm wrote: post #38

Social network must be a protocol, not a platform. That's the only way to gurantee free speech and cencorship resistance. Nostr[1] is proving to be a good first step in this direction. [1] https://nostr.how/

No thanks. Social networks are non essential. Twitter and Substack Notes can go away tomorrow and no one will bat an eyelid. In these cases, people just want to go to a website or a mobile app, click around and have some foolish fun for sometime. Banking networks need protocols, not social media, which is intrinsically about dumb fun. That is why Mastodon and these things will never be as popular.

You seem to have no recollection of how Twitter has played an outsized role in fast reporting on breaking events, such as the Arab Spring.
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