Substack writers, you need a website

Post by smeej » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 10:07 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #175

iamacyborg wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was never any better than Myspace, and gradually got much worse. I might be misremembering a bunch but myspace never had a feed that showed you your friend’s updates. It also wasn’t able to magically show you the people who were at that random house party you went to the night before that you hit it off with but were too drunk to get their number.

Facebook didn't have the feed initially either (and it was really disliked when it was introduced - people thought it was like stalking). But yes to your second point. Real people who you actually wanted to know and had actually met were on Facebook. That wasn't really true of any of the other sites.

Post by jimbokun » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

jonahx wrote: post #144

simonsarris wrote: post #107

I just have website.com and my Substack is subdomain.website.com. If I ever wanted to move off (I definitely don't!) I could keep all the urls exactly the same with self-hosting. But substack solved distribution (and community, and bookkeeping, un-distribution etc) and it solved getting paid for my writing, which is not enough to live on but its definitely significant and well appreciated. It is worth much more than…

> The social networks are big because they have genuine utility. I think this is mostly wrong, and that the social networks are big primarily because they spent money at the right time to create entrenched network effects that allow them to rent-seek ever after. The quality and innovation of the services themselves (especially simple sites like twitter/X) is not the moat. At a technical level, most are easily clone-a…

Post by xboxnolifes » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 10:13 PM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #47

billyp-rva wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Substack gives you a way to push content to your subscribers without an intermediary deciding what they get to read. How do we know they won't start limiting your reach in the future? That's the path basically every other platform has gone down.

> How do we know they won't start limiting your reach in the future? You can never know anything about what anybody will do in the future? You can't. Why do hackers always use this argument against everything?

Post by jimbokun » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 10:20 PM UTC

billyp-rva wrote: post #15

skippyfish wrote: post #6

Counterpoint from someone who's been publishing on the internet for decades: no one will visit your website. It's as simple as that. You need a push mechanism to reach readers. RSS could be it, but it's too niche. Social media is kinda it, but algorithmic feeds reward political clickbait and just because someone clicks "follow" or "subscribe" is not a guarantee that they will ever see your posts. Substack gives you a…

> Substack gives you a way to push content to your subscribers without an intermediary deciding what they get to read. How do we know they won't start limiting your reach in the future? That's the path basically every other platform has gone down.

Post by smelendez » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 10:38 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #175

iamacyborg wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was never any better than Myspace, and gradually got much worse. I might be misremembering a bunch but myspace never had a feed that showed you your friend’s updates. It also wasn’t able to magically show you the people who were at that random house party you went to the night before that you hit it off with but were too drunk to get their number.

Facebook didn't have the feed initially either (and it was really disliked when it was introduced - people thought it was like stalking). But yes to your second point. Real people who you actually wanted to know and had actually met were on Facebook. That wasn't really true of any of the other sites.