Substack

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Substack is a silo for publishing blog posts with a newsletter feature that allows authors to charge for subscriptions.

Features

  • blog posts
  • podcasts
  • email newsletter publishing
    • paid tier
  • feed reader (supports RSS)
  • chat

IndieWeb support

RSS Subscriptions

Substack publications have advertised RSS feeds at /feed. Example:

Substack RSS to OPML

Export an OPML feed of your Substack subscriptions with this script: substack-to-opml.js. (via Les Orchard)

Criticism

Hosts and profits from bigoted content

2023-11-28 Jonathan M. Katz: Substack Has a Nazi Problem (archived)

Some Substack newsletters by Nazis and white nationalists have thousands or tens of thousands of subscribers, making the platform a new and valuable tool for creating mailing lists for the far right. And many accept paid subscriptions through Substack, seemingly flouting terms of service that ban attempts to “publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes.”

Substack, which takes a 10 percent cut of subscription revenue, makes money when readers pay for Nazi newsletters.

Funds transphobia

2021-03-21 Jude Ellison Sady Doyle: In Queers We Trust. All Others Pay Cash. (archived)

Lack of accountability

2021-03-17 Annalee Newitz: Here's why Substack's scam worked so well (archived)

“So Substack has an editorial policy, but no accountability. And they have terms of service, but no enforcement. … It’s the usual Silicon Valley sleight-of-hand move, very similar to Uber reps claiming drivers aren’t “core” to their business.”

Many trackers by default

  • https://twitter.com/jakobsohn/status/1404889520332488708
    • "Ironically, quite a few google and optimizely trackers on your blog. Likely unintentional as they're quite difficult to avoid using any commercial service but if substack isn't paying you, consider moving elsewhere? And if they are, maybe a post explaining what's being collected." @jakobsohn June 15, 2021

Articles

Quits

  • 2021-03-15 Daniel Hon: s09e08: Wear a mask. It’ll change your life. (archived)

    I’ll be moving this newsletter away from Substack soon and closing my account

  • 2023-08-13 Louise Stigell: Bye, Substack 🖤 (archived)

    I’ve also been kind of reluctant to let so much of my content live somewhere other than on my website. It doesn’t matter that Substack is a great platform, and that I can move my content off it whenever I want. It doesn’t matter that I can monetize my content here. It’s still not my platform, and I have no control over the rollout of new features, visual changes, monetization policies, etc. Some people have complained to me that I’m being too pushy trying to get them to pay for a subscription. Well, it’s not me doing the pushing, it’s Substack. It’s all automated and beyond my control. And ultimately, what matters the most to me in my business in control and autonomy.

  • 2023-12-27 Doug Belshaw: I am so tired of moving platforms (archived)

    You, as a community, space, or platform are deciding who and what is unacceptable. In Substack’s case, for example, they don’t allow pornography but they do allow Nazis. That’s not “free speech” but rather a business decision. If you’re making moderation based on financials, fine, but say so. Then platform users can make choices appropriately.

    • Has moved back to his own domain in combination with MailPoet
  • 2023-12-29 Audrey Watters: Leaving Substack (Again) (archived)

    That is to say, by subscribing to Second Breakfast, you are no longer supporting a platform that has, quite openly, come out in support of Nazis using and profiting from its site. Honestly, it’s my bad for using Substack in the first place. I’d already left the platform once before, back in 2021, when it launched an initiative to pay a lot of well-known writers to use its product – many of whose whole schtick was fomenting anti-trans hate.

    • Moved to her own subdomain using Ghost for her newsletter
  • 2024-01-05 Laura Hilliger: Maybe I'm moving (back) (archived)

    I have inconvenienced myself with my tech principles for decades at this point. It takes days for my local bookshops to send me books because I try very hard to not use Amazon. I am not a part of several family and friend What’sApp groups because I loathe anything Facebook is or touches. I have, for decades, tried to live up to my values, fought for the open web and made technology choices that align with who I am and what I believe in.

    • Moved (back) to own domain and MailPoet for sending the newsletter after 3 months of using Substack
  • 2024-01-05 Molly White: Citation Needed has a new home (archived)

    Instead of trying to comb through the multitude of blogging platforms and newsletter providers out there, I have instead decided that I will be a platform of one. This way, I don't have to worry that a platform will — as with Substack — fail to enforce content moderation policies that I thought should have protected against this. It also gives me a lot more ownership and control over the work that I do, which is something I've been wanting for a while.

  • 2024-01-12 Danya Ruttenberg: without a net (or, as the kids say: Big Personal News) (archived)

    "Their increasing tolerance of white-supremacist, neo-Confederate, and explicitly Nazi newsletters, and their co-founder Hamish McKenzie’s choice to respond to a mass letter by Substack writers by saying that he’s happy to profit off of them and refuses to enforce his Terms of Service is my breaking point. I’ve moved to the nonprofit Ghost"

See Also

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