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Substack Notes Launched

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Re: Substack Notes Launched

#681
post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember there was a time when people were excited about medium. Then medium needed some money so they started blocking readers behind login dialog boxes. Then come substack and everyone got excited about it. Sooner or later it will be on same path that medium took. When will we realise that blogging websites (not personal blogs) are not sustainable in long run.

> Then come substack and everyone got excited about it. Sooner or later it will be on same path that medium took. Substack is already far, far more paywalled than Medium ever was. Subscriptions are the business model.

Yeah, it appears their growth strategy is the inverse of Medium's.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#682

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've been looking at Substack with the eyes of someone who has lived through the enshitment of Quora, Medium et al, and realized there are never guarantees with any such service. Apparently I owe them money and attention, and they owe me nothing. I will never get long term what I joined a service for, so today I simply do not commit. I never committed to Twitter, and I'm glad. I want to share content, I setup a ghost site. I want to read content, I use RSS and also read what I can for free. That's it.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#683

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'm very disappointed in Musk for essentially ruining one of the world's great information platforms.

I’m happy with the destruction of Twitter. I think it’s a net negative for the world and we’ll be better off without it. This might be the only tech I’ve ever felt like this about (including atomic bombs). I think it amplifies and even creates hate and division.

It will be funny if ten years from now we find out it was a gawker-style takedown with the intent to purposely destroy something in a lasting and permanent way as described in Ryan Holiday’s book about Thiel’s purposeful execution of strategy to destroy gawker, https://www.grahammann.net/book-notes/conspiracy-ryan-holida...

PS- are there any other business/tech “case study” type books out there. I also liked Clifford Stoll’s Cuckoo’s Egg, John Brooks’ Business Adventures, Michael Lewis’ Liar’s Poker, Po Bronson’s Nudist on the Late Shift, and David Kaplan’s Silicon Boys. Looking for more of what I suspect is more common than I can find.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#684
I can see why Elon is hysterical. An actual long-form publisher, with content creators, with proper "blue checks" and a customer base paying for more than vanity badges. I spent a few minutes on it, and yeah, it IS a Twitter clone, and it's a real threat.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#685
post #54

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 organical…

While it would have helped jumpstart Notes, I disagree. A lot of content creators have their feet in both puddles, waiting it out - and with this and the non-stop Musk antics and tantrums, we are looking at an actual stampede away from that hellhole.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#686

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.

"a Twitter clone with no upside to writers"

Notes linking to Substack Newsletters should convert better. Notes are networked "post summaries" that represent an improvement over the traditional blog homepage format. I see a play that could improve what they're cloning while also benefiting their core offering.

It has potential but the likeness of the clone is a bit off-putting for me.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#687
post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This notes thing looks like an attempt to pivot to an advertising based business model It's not. Substack is very clear about that. https://on.substack.com/p/notes-faq "The ultimate goal on Substack is to convert casual readers into paying subscribers. Because the Substack network runs on paid subscriptions, writers are rewarded for respecting the trust and attention of their audiences, not exploiting it like with…

Because no company would ever lie about their intentions, or at the very least pivot to the exact opposite of their original point without a second thought. Would they?

"Because no company would ever lie about their intentions, or at the very least pivot to the exact opposite of their original point without a second thought."

No business would pivot to a dying monetization model unless it was their last option.

Advertising is not a solution for Substack; but rather a Trojan Horse.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: most of the Cloud Native crowd I follow moved to Hachyderm. > Seems like the people doing the most things in my field have no time for drama and are busy doing stuff, Standing up for ethics isn't performative drama. I made my exit very quietly because I didn't have time for the drama of a petulant tyrant. I care that the tech I consume is open source or at the very least is guided by some principal of a…

Sure. People spent months and a tremendous amount of energy discussing the state of a site that is a glorified animated wall of text, but it's not drama. Sometimes I wish I could teleport this community to were I lived in Mali and force you to stay there for 6 months to re-calibrate your sense of what's important.

Most people didn't. Some small group of people spent tremendous amount of energy. I think both of you agree on that point.

Re: Substack Notes Launched

#689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate is just confused admiration

I confusedly admire bigots and racists? That doesn’t make any sense…

Many bigots are revealed as self-hating closet cases and fetishists, so I could see a naïve analysis attempt to flip it around and assume it must go both ways.
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