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Substack Notes Launched

on.substack.com

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Re: Substack Notes Launched

#381

Post by ISL »

wpietri wrote: post #348
Pxtl wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm loving Mastodon myself (@pxtl@mastodon.social) but I worry that the UI stumbling blocks caused by the multi-server system and the far-poorer discoverability than what we're used to from Twitter will keep it from growing well -- twitter's algorithmic feed and relevant-to-the-user trending topics and features like that help make twitter feel lively even for a new user even with just a handful of follows. I don't kn…

I think "is X the next Twitter" is the wrong question to ask. When I started working at Twitter (now years ago) my relatives asked me if they should join. And after thinking about it, my honest answer was "no". The only person who needs to be on Twitter is somebody who wants to feel like they're part of a global conversation. Most people just don't and won't. Twitter is only successful because it started in an era wh…

I think Twitter's popularity and endurance suggests that there is interest in that global groupchat.

What's unclear to me is whether or not there is enough money in it to make it worth maintaining/moderating.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#382

Post by futhey »

PaulHoule wrote: post #307

Substack really competes with creators leaving and setting up their own newsletter + payment gateway software. That’s like a $20,000 or so project from a web dev firm and for a creator who gets $200,000 a year from their newsletter it pays for itself in a year. The trouble is that substack makes almost all of its money from two handfuls of users who make more than that so if substack loses those creators it is left w…

Ghost is effectively pivoted into this, so, it's an open-source and cheap/free alternative to Substack, if for some reason Substack doesn't work for you.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#384

Post by PaulHoule »

runako wrote: post #328
PaulHoule wrote: post #307

Substack really competes with creators leaving and setting up their own newsletter + payment gateway software. That’s like a $20,000 or so project from a web dev firm and for a creator who gets $200,000 a year from their newsletter it pays for itself in a year. The trouble is that substack makes almost all of its money from two handfuls of users who make more than that so if substack loses those creators it is left w…

This is similar to the "Amazon problem," where manufacturers can earn a higher margin by selling direct. >The question about any feature they add is “what does it do about that situation?” The answer is the same in the cases of Amazon & Substack: generating sales isn't free, and in all likelihood the platform can do it cheaper than you can. Take the $200k writer who pays $20k to Substack annually. Either Substack can…

It's an interesting case.

So far the superstars of Substack (say Matt Taibbi) were superstars before Substack and promote Substack as opposed to the other way around.

Substack competes with traditional journalism, which delivers more journalism per dollar than the typical Substack but is based around the strength of the brand of The Guardian or The Economist as opposed to that of the individual journalist. From the viewpoint of the journalist the newspaper is an aggregator that is doing their marketing work for them.

Substack also competes with Medium which plausibly claims to be doing promotional work for its authors, but despite claiming to be a place which is a little bit better than the rest of the web it's actually a place that is a little worse than the rest of the web and isn't making significant amounts of money for anyone.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#385

Post by asenna »

I've been enjoying Farcaster in recent months. I think they've taken a very thoughtful approach with the "sufficiently decentralized" philosophy [1] and that openness is now helping them grow the ecosystem of apps using the network.

[1] - https://www.varunsrinivasan.com/2022/01/11/sufficient-decent...

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#386

Post by jeromegv »

alfor wrote: post #287
waboremo wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk is the least of my concerns, I can ignore his account if I cared that much. I can't really ignore that a lot of higher quality accounts have been interacting less because Twitter has become a technical mess, fucking up their timelines and notifications. This sort of loss is quiet, and slow. You only really notice it when it's too late, when your feed is nothing but mindless ads and random accounts you never foll…

Haven't see any meaninfull problems. A bit less spam and crap.

Really? Amount of ads is so high, it’s pretty much every 4 tweets. It’s unrecognizable from a year ago

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#387

Post by Andrex »

jacquesm wrote: post #181
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.

I hope it doesn't. Because it essentially sets us up for a repeat. If Mastodon was 'just not the thing people were looking for' then at least it solves the problems that both Twitter and Substack have, which is that they are not federated. Better to fix Mastodon than to waste another decade on something that will ultimately blow up and with the way Substack has - in my head at least - been associated negatively with…

The fact Mastodon sites don't even load without JS is absurd, a huge not-talked-about barrier to entry (globally), and a betrayal of its "protocol-first" talking points.

Until that changes Mastodon isn't trying to be a serious player.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#389

Post by [deleted] »

Jare wrote: post #90
hersko wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

- People I follow have left. Most have moved to Mastodon so I can still follow them there. It's a constant trickle but some day the weight will be higher on Mastodon's side of the balance. - Ads range from obnoxious to downright scams. I know some people used to block ad senders as a matter of routine, but I didn't, most of the time they were valid and I was happy to support the site via their ads. After Musk, most a…

[deleted]

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#390

Post by samhuk »

MasterScrat wrote: post #383

I'm looking for a new platform to write technical blog posts, is Substack the right place? I'm basically looking for the "Medium from when Medium was good"

I use substack for this (samhuk.substack.com), and all I can say is Substack is better than medium, but absolutely it is not good IMHO. It's support for code snippets is basically non-existent, as one example.
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