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Substack writers, you need a website

elizabethtai.com

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Re: Substack writers, you need a website

#281

Post by rhizome »

UqWBcuFx6NV4r wrote: post #206
drnick1 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rarely had people's real names & photos on it This is a feature, not a bug. There is nothing worse for a society's collective privacy than a surveillance machine where people willingly post every detail of their lives. Stalin would have dreamed of today's anti-social media as a surveillance tool. > There's so much that's great about it. There is also so much that's truly awful about it, such as Meta vacuuming up yo…

okay? good for you? you being worked up about privacy doesn’t magically invalidate the experience of others. you not liking something doesn’t mean that it’s objectively bad. you not seeing utility in something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have utility. you not seeing value in something doesn’t mean that a great many people saw value in it, which is exactly what you’re arguing against. It does not surprise me that som…

The cost of that experience/juice was their privacy. Value isn't free.

If you take on a new Facebook experience by using their camera glasses, that will also have a privacy cost that this time will include my (and everyone else in-frame's) privacy.

Re: Substack writers, you need a website

#282

Post by chromadon »

jlengrand wrote: post #276
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…

oh I can tell you that lately, hundreds of bots are very much visiting my website every day in volumes that I have never seen in the past... Unsure that's a good news though

The LLMs love your site!

Re: Substack writers, you need a website

#283

Post by boccaff »

tome wrote: post #258
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…

What is "un-distribution"?

I don't know, but I imagine "unsubscribe" type of features.

Re: Substack writers, you need a website

#285

Post by stared »

Now the friction is close to none, at least for techies.

Set a GitHub repo, use pnpm + Astro, and your favourite AI to migrate data there, brew some coffee, and before you finish it, you have your page up.

It does not prevent you from posting elsewhere. But that way, you have full control both on the fruits of your own work, and how you display it.

Re: Substack writers, you need a website

#287

Post by paraschopra »

I used to pay Mailchimp $100+/month and would write 3-4 articles per month. It seemed illogical to me how much mailchimp would charge.

I now have a substack + a wordpress website. An article goes to both places, and substack acts as a subscriber growth + email distribution tool for me.

Re: Substack writers, you need a website

#288

Post by incompatible »

noosphr wrote: post #251
incompatible wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, tolerate Nazis, give them a place to share their words, let them be part of the mainstream, let them take part in elections, play their dirty tricks and form paramilitaries and win control of government. It's a shame that that leads to certain groups, like Jews, LGBTQ, non-whites, or immigrants getting exterminated, but that's just the price you have to pay for free speech.

Let's see what the man who coined the term paradox of tolerance had to say about this: >In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force;…

Alright, and killed or enslaved. I also missed the communists, the same treatment for them. We can accept that there may be differences in targets between one group of fascists and the next, it's really up to their Führer to decide.

Re: Substack writers, you need a website

#289

Post by pembrook »

simonw wrote: post #56
rsingel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could do the same thing through Ghost, which has an API, and not be using a service that proudly platforms the Tates and nazis.

Ghost would cost $288/month (or $241/month paid yearly).

And substack is free because they use YOU as their growth engine. Your newsletter is plastered with their branding and links to their app, not yours. If someone subscribes to pay for your publication via their app, they own the subscription, not you.

Ultimately, even if you own the email list, you’re sharecropping on their land.

They will email your list with their own promotional offers and marketing whenever they feel like it.

If we’ve proved anything in tech, it’s that consumers will fall for the trap of “free” every single time.

Re: Substack writers, you need a website

#290

Post by pembrook »

paraschopra wrote: post #287

I used to pay Mailchimp $100+/month and would write 3-4 articles per month. It seemed illogical to me how much mailchimp would charge. I now have a substack + a wordpress website. An article goes to both places, and substack acts as a subscriber growth + email distribution tool for me.

Substack is free because you act as a growth/distribution engine for them.

They plaster your emails with ads to download their app and will even email your list whenever they feel like it and when you leave they will still email your list substack-related content and offers.

When someone subscribed via the app btw, they own that person, not you.

If you’re okay with that trade off, fine, but I thought we learned this lesson about the trap of “free” with the social media companies before…

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