Preparing to leave Substack
The water has finally got too hot for this froggy
Hi all,
So the seemingly inevitable is happening - I am having to look at moving this newsletter to a different platform. There are several reasons for doing this, and several more reasons why I’m reaching that decision now. But first, in case you don’t want to read all of that, a quick poll! Because I would love to keep as many of you fabulous readers as possible, I want to move to a platform that you like. Perhaps you have no strong opinions on newsletter hosts (I don’t either really!), but in case you do, can I ask…
Sorry - I can’t add more options than that, but please let me know in the comments whether you’ve a different fav platform? And:
Thank you for voting.
Now, why am I moving away from Substack?
It hosts and actively supports Nazis.
It is increasingly hoaching with ‘AI’ shills and ‘AI’ content.
It is undergoing sharp ‘enshittification’ - changing its interface to reduce the quality of the platform whilst increasingly trapping writers in it, e.g. by requiring more algorithm-targeted Notes activity, by promoting Followers over Subscribers, and most recently by switching payment systems so they’re not portable. Just in the two years I’ve been here, the quality of the community experience has declined sharply, in my opinion, and I’m reluctant to keep investing myself and my subscribers’ money into a system that’s on such a crappy trajectory.
So why now?
The Nazi thing has been an issue for a while. So why wasn’t that a deal breaker for me before? I went into this a bit when the first iteration of this issue broke. And to be honest, my feelings haven’t significantly changed - There are Nazis on every social platform on the web, they are cockroaches. Substack is actually the only place I haven’t stumbled across them, but I know they’re lurking. If you’re using an internet platform, whether that’s social media or newsletter host*, then you are sharing space with them, and using a platform that benefits from letting them stay. That’s simple fact.
So what makes Substack so much worse than, say, Bluesky with its fondness for banning Palestinians and trans people, and markedly not banning TERFs and Nazis? Or every newsletter platform with their users conveniently not publicly searchable*? Why is it acceptable to simply curate your own space on other platforms but not here?
Well, because Substack is probably paying some far right writers to be on here. So there’s money flowing both from and to Nazis. Orders of magnitude less money than Meta (who own Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Whatsapp) is investing in far right content, but still. So far as we know, other newsletter sites* only take money from Nazis, they don’t pay it out too.
*Ghost have been very vocal about moderating their users, which is why they’re on my list of potential new homes. My worry is how are they doing this. They’re a relatively small company. Are they running background checks, and reading every newsletter? If the latter, how? Keyword searches? ‘AI’ engines? Human labour? I don’t know another example of a successfully moderated internet platform, so it feels like there are a lot of potential pit falls here that I’ve not seen addressed. My guess is either they aren’t moderating everything, or they are, but that system is vulnerable to deep flaws.
Given all this, I still feel the actual moral gain in leaving Substack is minimal. I will unfortunately still be using other social media platforms that are equally as bad or worse. There’s no way to avoid that unless I get famous enough to live under a rock. Ceding ground to them here whilst tolerating them elsewhere is not an unequivocal victory. In fact, and to be very blunt, leaving Substack on moral grounds feels not unlike performing morality for the likes. Which… ughh.
So while this is part of my decision, I don’t feel noble about it. I hate the politics of Substack’s owners though, and will be very glad to be shot of them.
As you all know, I have very limited energy because of disabling illnesses. So making a move like this - the research, the organising, the sheer extra labour, expense and loss of platform - is a big deal for me. It’s not easy, and not something I can do unless I have spare capacity. So I have havered for ages over the decision. There just hasn’t been enough actual, definite benefit to balance out the health, money* and career costs. However, I have felt increasing pressure to be active in the Notes on this app, and to post articles more often than I want to, all to maintain some kind of discoverability (see 3. below). This pressure is adding a health cost to staying, and has definitely tipped the scales slightly.
*Substack is free for me to use and to have a paid tier on. To do the same anywhere else will cost me more money than I will get from paid subs, so leaving probably means dropping the paid tier. Which I don’t mind doing, but it’s another small blow.
I’ve been a little bit of a frog in the pot about the experience getting worse, I suppose. I love the clean, easy user interface and I like having my newsletters available in app, website, and email formats for however my readers best like reading. So I could, if I ignore the moral muddy waters, simply abandon the social media side of Substack and use it as a newletter platform alone. I’m almost doing that at the moment, to be honest. Sticking to the edges would mean I don’t have to encounter so many wildly awful AI takes, or algorithm bait articles. I could, as I do with Instagram, just post and run!
But if I’m doing that, I’m losing the one unique benefit of Substack, which is the internal community discovery (now contingent on me being active). So why stay somewhere that’s rapidly trying to erode its own value to me, and is also, as above, giving money to Nazis? With its recent changes, Substack has made clear its intentions to prioritise shareholder profits over writers, and I guess I’m just tired of watching nice things get broken for cash.
This isn’t a decision I’m rushing.
Partly because of my own limited capacity, and partly because I have yet to find a new home that meets my needs and isn’t just as bad as Substack. I may post one or two more articles on here while I figure things out. But when the move happens, I’ll let you know where I’m going and what differences you will notice - hopefully minimal unless you only access my articles in the app. I want to avoid emails being the only option though - our inboxes are cluttered enough, so it’s important to me that people can access and read my articles online if they choose.
Sorry to all the Substack-loyal readers, this isn’t a move I wanted to make and I know how convenient this platform is for browsing. I know I’ll lose some of you because of that, and I’ll be really sorry to see you go. I hope most of you will be happy to follow me to a new platform, your support of this blog over the last two years has meant a huge amount to me. I’ve got to meet subscribers at events, and had such lovely feedback and fun conversations, so I really hope to be able to continue offering you interesting articles where-ever we land.
Happy weekend. More soon…