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Ana Marie Cox on the Shaky Foundation of Substack as a Business

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Re: Ana Marie Cox on the Shaky Foundation of Substack as a Business

#41

Post by _Algernon_ »

SilverElfin wrote: post #37
hiddencost wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, censorship. Which is a bad thing. Ideas, even disagreeable ones, should be permitted. Otherwise you don’t have a real democracy.

That's no longer a justification once you have algorithmic amplification which Substack introduced with its Twitter immitation.

At that point they ceased to just tolerate these ideas but to amplify them. At that point they carry more responsibility, and people rightly blame them for it.

Free speech is fine. A private company handing nazis a megaphone and not accepting criticism for it is not.

Re: Ana Marie Cox on the Shaky Foundation of Substack as a Business

#42

Post by mcepl »

techpineapple wrote: post #2

Why is it that Substack can’t just be run as a 10-20 person small-medium sized business forever? If publishers want to go there for a basic product, and Substack can collect rent from them, what’s the problem?

You cannot give millions of USD to potential authors if you are tiny webserver-running small business. That’s what the article was all about.

Re: Ana Marie Cox on the Shaky Foundation of Substack as a Business

#43

Post by archagon »

SilverElfin wrote: post #37
hiddencost wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, censorship. Which is a bad thing. Ideas, even disagreeable ones, should be permitted. Otherwise you don’t have a real democracy.

Should it be the responsibility of a periodical to publish every random Nazi op-ed? (And then send out push notifications for it?)

Assholes can self-publish, as always, IMO.

Re: Ana Marie Cox on the Shaky Foundation of Substack as a Business

#44

Post by archagon »

randallsquared wrote: post #15
jeswin wrote: post #3

> It’s as unstable as a SpaceX launch Hate makes people blind. Starship is failing by design - that's just how they're choosing to develop it. The chopsticks video that we saw earlier was very nearly science fiction. And as far as regular launches go, SpaceX has done more successful launches than any company or nation ever. But more generally, this idea of abandoning an app (or product) the moment you encounter peopl…

Abandoning a community the moment you encounter people who disagree with you is how one builds a bubble strong enough to say things like the bit you quoted.

Why would I spend my precious time wallowing in filth and squalor with some radicalized “influencers” who spout evil nonsense and entirely lack self awareness?

I’d rather go read a book and discuss it with some actually intelligent friends.

Re: Ana Marie Cox on the Shaky Foundation of Substack as a Business

#45

Post by slg »

SilverElfin wrote: post #37
hiddencost wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, censorship. Which is a bad thing. Ideas, even disagreeable ones, should be permitted. Otherwise you don’t have a real democracy.

This is an ironic response to a comment on HN that is being downvoted and soon will be censored by the crowd based flagging and voting system for being "disagreeable".

Re: Ana Marie Cox on the Shaky Foundation of Substack as a Business

#46

Post by kubectl_h »

socalgal2 wrote: post #39
kubectl_h wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Substack had a few things that worked for it * Patreon kind of sucks for writing / newsletters or else they could have captured part of this market. Medium was supposed to fix this but they had an epic collapse. * Single point where subscribers can manage their subscriptions and preserve a common identity across subscriptions in the comments etc. Again, Medium/collapse. * A rapid adoption of substack by well known on…

> could have been Medium Did Medium have a way to pay authors? Maybe it would have been easy to add but saying "A could have been B if only" I think misses the picture. Yahoo could have been Google if only they'd chosen a different algo. Flickr could have been Instagram if only they'd made a mobile app with filters. Etc... I think it's precisely because substack launched with a way to let readers sponser the authors…

I'm certainly not arguing against your point. I didn't work at Medium but I had insight into their operations at the time and they didn't really seem to have a coherent vision to make money 12 or so years ago. My comparison of the two is more around their similar goals and audience, which was giving great (or interesting) writers a home for their projects and audiences and somehow make money. Medium was saying the financial part would happen down the line and it was a can they kicked for a long time. Medium seemed more interested in talking about their technology and aesthetics than they did on figuring out the crucial parts. Substack got it right doing what Patreon (and even Twitch) had already proved, people will pay up front for the writers/creators they love.

That said Medium did pay higher profile writers and publications to move to their platform (in some cases quite a bit of money) in a similar way that Substack has, which was to dip into the VC funded bank account.

Re: Ana Marie Cox on the Shaky Foundation of Substack as a Business

#47

Post by DoctorOW »

barrrrald wrote: post #16

This post didn't age well – 3 weeks later Substack announced a $100m fundraise at $1.1b valuation. [1] Ana's contention that Substack is "rickety" seems motivated by her conviction that they should adopt a more assertive, aggressive censorship regime, and that "we need a world where a social safety net protects risky writing". There are certainly many interesting questions about the future of media and Substack's bus…

At no point in this post does she even write the word "censor"/"censorship". The post relentlessly criticizes Nazis but wanting silence to her dissent isn't pro-speech, it's just pro-nazi.

I'm really sick of this argument. You never see free speech extremists defending anti-fascism or even questioning the decisions of governments as long as they're right wing.

Re: Ana Marie Cox on the Shaky Foundation of Substack as a Business

#48

Post by Kwpolska »

senko wrote: post #40
Kwpolska wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a successful platform is not enough for VC grifters who funded them, the only thing that matters to VC is growth.

"Grifters" a bit harsh, considering they used VC money to become successful in the first place (see other comments). Presumably they knew the deal.

In the long run, all VC investments lead to enshittification.

Re: Ana Marie Cox on the Shaky Foundation of Substack as a Business

#49

Post by lapcat »

barrrrald wrote: post #16

This post didn't age well – 3 weeks later Substack announced a $100m fundraise at $1.1b valuation. [1] Ana's contention that Substack is "rickety" seems motivated by her conviction that they should adopt a more assertive, aggressive censorship regime, and that "we need a world where a social safety net protects risky writing". There are certainly many interesting questions about the future of media and Substack's bus…

> This post didn't age well – 3 weeks later Substack announced a $100m fundraise at $1.1b valuation.

From the article: Newcomer says Substack is “pitching investors on a round between $50M and $100M that would value it above its roughly $700M last round price.”

Also: And if Substack does manage to raise that $100M they’re looking for now? Things will get worse.

Re: Ana Marie Cox on the Shaky Foundation of Substack as a Business

#50

Post by lapcat »

jeswin wrote: post #3

> It’s as unstable as a SpaceX launch Hate makes people blind. Starship is failing by design - that's just how they're choosing to develop it. The chopsticks video that we saw earlier was very nearly science fiction. And as far as regular launches go, SpaceX has done more successful launches than any company or nation ever. But more generally, this idea of abandoning an app (or product) the moment you encounter peopl…

That was just a metaphor, a throwaway line in the article, no more important than Stephen Miller's marriage. It's peculiar that this is the subject you chose to expand on in the comments.
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