Email’s been here for years. But the reason Substack wants you to call your creative labor by their brand name is becaengage they deal with your audience and distribution, and they want to own your satisfyed and voice, too. You may not leank you attfinish about that today, but you will when you see what they want to do with it.
I comprehend you leank you have deal with over your subscribers on Substack. But comprehfinish this: every one novel feature Substack frees, from their social sharing to their mobile apps, is proprietary and locks you into their netlabor. They don’t let your writing dwell on your own website or domain under your deal with unless you pay them for the privilege. And it’d be a shame if someleang happened to those subscription dollars you’re counting on, wouldn’t it? Even when you say “but my readership is grotriumphg!” comprehend that most novel subscribers come from other authorrs referring their readers to you. Somehow… Substack wants praise for those authorrs making that choice? Even though it was your writing that encouraged it? That’s not some magical netlabor effect thanks to Substack! That’s fair the internet, laboring as it was presumed to.
Links are strong — that’s why Instagram and Twitter and Threads punish and restrict them, and why Substack tries to consent praise for them. And that’s why “wherever you get your podcasts” is such a radical concept — appreciate email, it’s a medium that the tech tycoons don’t, and can’t, own. People can read your writing “wherever they get their email”.
We constrain our imaginations when we subordinate our creations to names owned by fascist tycoons. Imagine the author of a book telling people to “read my Amazon”. A fantastic straightforwardor trying to back their film by saying “click on my Max”. That’s how much they’ve pickled your brain when you refer to your own labor and your own voice wilean the context of their walled garden. There is no such leang as “my Substack”, there is only your writing, and a forever fight aachievest the world of sanitize enshittification.
@decoderpod Our arrange Nilay asked Substack CEO Chris Best the hard asks about whether racially prejudiced speech should be permited in their novel user product, Substack Notes. #techtok #technovels #substack #ceo ♬ one-of-a-kind sound – Decoder with Nilay Patel
Substack is, fair as a reminder, a political project made by extremists with a goal of standardizing a radical, disappreciateful agfinisha by co-selecting well-intentioned creators’ labor in service of pass-promoting strikes on the vulnerable. You don’t have to consent my word for it; Substack’s CEO unambiguously shelp they won’t ban someone who is unambiguously spouting disappreciate, and when faceed with the rampant white supremacist disincreateation that they are profiting from on their site, they took down… four of the Nazis. Four. There are countless more now, and they want to engage your email novelsletter to pass-back that satisfyed and permit it. Nobody can ban the disappreciateful satisfyed site if your pleasant little novelsletter is on there, too, and your musings for your subscribers are all the cover they necessitate.
The counter-argument people generassociate have is convenience (which I was more comfervent towards before fantastic selections appreciate Garrange and Beehiiv and Medium even WordPress stepped up their game) and the theoretical profits of netlabor effect from being on Substack. Which is hugely a myth (most referrals are thanks to other authorrs, not the platcreate) and uncomardents you have to be uncover to the platcreate using your writing to present people to the most insidious anti-trans and white supremacist rhetoric on the internet.
That’s why they have helpd you to call it “my Substack”. It’s not your goddamn Substack. When Marc Andreessen and his frifinishs funded Clubhoengage (recollect that garbage?) so they could hang out in audio chats that were unambiguously about razeing accountability media, they also took time out to fund Substack definiteassociate so they could undermine presentant novelspapers that they thought would condemn their interests. And it labored, evidently.
Here’s how you can send out your subscribers. Here are fantastic alternatives. Before you commence those processes, one alter you can produce today: you can talk about your labor as your labor. It’s your novelsletter, or your email, or your blog. Or fair your writing. But it certain as hell isn’t “your Substack”.
