Regarding Wordpress host a Wordpress site for you, they deplatformed Jay Dyer 3-4 year ago, locked him out of all of his content. No reason issued. I run a Wordpress site on my own in addition to Substack, it is a fair bit of work. I came to Substack because of the ability to collaborate and distribute my work with others without the interference from peeps like the WaPo lady you mentioned. Perhaps she’s the Substack version of Yackerino over on heX.
I don't publish my articles there but use it as a nicely presented news aggregator that links to the original articles, plus features the network I co-founded & a "Watch Live" page which embeds our livestream feed, platform free.
As far as Jay being censored, there are 2 different types of Wordpress sites - from wordpress.com where they provide a limited framework, or self-hosted from wordpress.org where you download the files and build your own on their open source platform. Pretty sure Jay ran the first type, unless his web host decided to part ways, in which case he could literally back up and move his entire site to another host easily. That's the big advantage of self-hosting. He could even get his own physical server literally in his house and host it, and there's nothing Wordpress could do about it.
I never messed with the dot com - the free version was too limiting vs the self hosted, which was always free, but you have to do more of the work yourself. I have a guy who helps me and he knows a LOT more about this stuff. Self hosted is not for the weak-willed, it is a slog & there is constant vigilance, maintenance & upkeep.
A plugin update can break your whole site, and there’s nobody to call to fix it.
Your site can get hacked and redirected to a p0rn site, and you have to find someone with the skills who can hopefully fix it (this happened to me 10 years ago!)
It scared me away from self hosted for a long time, and I dipped my toe back in last year. Hired a guy on Fiverr to build me an aggregator framework. Looked and worked great for a minute but it was shady. It would scrape the entire article & change a few words to make it look like an original.
I never advertised or mentioned it, but a crawler found it and it got caught by one of the writers after a few months, who got (correctly) upset. I then started to change it so it redirected vs scraping, which started the issues on the site.
Apparently the host I chose also didn’t update their back end to keep up with the latest version of PHP (I have no idea what that means or why it matters but it’s a BIG DEAL) so I moved hosts from shared space to a Virtual Private Server & am making a real try at it this time.
I’m a software dev, and still it’s a lot of work. The plugins are a mix of good and bad. If have the behavior you want and don’t do auto upgrade you are for the most part good until one of the plugins requires an update and the remote service you rely with the plugin ceases to operate nicely.
Substack needs to maximize revenue, because remember, it's only taking 10%. So book authors, NYT best sellers and political commentators do get special promotions to be sure. As well as celebrities, influencers and people with strong social media followings. Substack really was only active since 2018 (technically founded near the end of 2017), contrary to popular belief it's barely scaled yet. To become profitable it needs its biggest personalities to exceed expectations in their performance. Since it's all about paid subs.
Influencer marketing is what you do when you are a relatively cash poor startup without a marketing budget. So growth in the app and otherwise is quasi-organic and riding the coattails of the actual writers. A very small number of people actually read its own promotions.
I personally don't care who they promote or why, I just want the ecosystem to grow faster. And not just in the U.S. It's not a meritocracy, your body of work over the last decade actually matters. Very unfortunate that Substack grew off the back of political writers and Twitter, but that's the choice they made at the time.
It's a subscription network, the only metric that actually matters is paid subs growth. There's no reason why you can't have a beehiiv, a ConvertKit, a Locals and a Substack. Many Substack writers have a LinkedIn Newsletter for example. It's never been an this vs. that as paid subs are only one way to make revenue.
Yeah, but if it becomes too toxic, a lot of creative will absolutely leave because, even if our content is political, politics and art can never get along. Probably would be a smart idea if the creatives of substack got together and made our own list/recs for newsletters. Maybe a newsletter swap or something? That’s popular among published fiction authors
Thanks for the shoutout! Something to keep monitoring the coming months and onwards. Looking around at the media/online landscape and enforcement of 'anti-disinformation' laws, I can't see how the hammer cannot drop on Substack at some point. It is worrying to see that the necessary safeguards / policies are not in place, meaning that they are either unaware or don't care about it. If anyone knows a different way of looking at it, I'd love to hear it. It's weird to see substack leadership not get substack somehow.
I propose channels/newsletter like ours stick together. If Substack does not work out we move elsewhere, together, and take our audiences with us. Together we're stronger and can support each other.
Absolutely, Robert. Solidarity & a bigger group of subs we can collectively bring will almost certainly attract someone like Locals, which was acquired by Rumble & where Glenn Greenwald went. I think he has some stake in the company too. I’m going to start looking
Bullshit I read the article by the music guy/girl/thing and it's a complaint was about Richard Hananina and muh "white nationalism," sob, which guess what is the cry of people who want to use authoritarian force to impose woke ideas. Woke already controls all other social media platforms, corporate media, academia, the state, and corporate HR and advertising departments, isn't that enough? Monocultures suck!
My only complaint about Hanania is he is kind of milque toast these days and seems to have sold out the Bulwark + neo-con war monger crowd. I have unsubscribed from you guys and will not be resubscribing unless you provide strong proof you are in the fight against CRT, the Russia proxy war, and the people transing our kids, adios, and good luck. I have an interest in at least touching base with leftists with a pure material class analysis, synthetic Breadtube style woke "leftism" is a non starter to me, good luck.
If you don’t know where I stand on Russia-Ukraine then go ahead and unsub but we are on the same side here. We are staunchly against the NATO Proxy war, and not going to beg you to stay,
Why did you prominently link to that music thing (I don't want to misgender it giggle) whose clear and obvious agenda is turn Substack into a venue where any right wing thought isn't allowed? I hate authoritarian censors MORE than I hate corporations which in themselves I am none to fond of.
I guess it was in the comments but you responded to the comment featuring this link with a big thumbs up. People like this can go to a dumbed down cultivated pasture like Mastadon, this is the wildlands.
The insincere phrase "leaning in" is one of the most common toppings on the word salad garbage pile that includes "let's unpack this" and other lame Ted Talkisms for people who want to sound like they are being smarter than they actually are.
I didn't know and I am quite alarmed by this news, so thanks for breaking it. I will try to cover this more on my Substack this week and link to your piece on it. The last thing Substack needs is some "communications professional from the Washington Post."
BTW, WordPress.com censors - they are the hosted version of their site but they kicked off one of the biggest radical feminist blogs years ago over criticizing gender ideology. The WordPress software is very powerful but it's also very easily hacked if you don't keep on it with constant plugin and software code updates. If I had to move from here I guess I'd go to Locals, though I'm not familiar with Ghost, are they good?
If you do use the WordPress software find a host that is pro free speech and will manage the security for you - because it is sooo easily hacked. I used to do web development and I've gotten to the point where I just don't want to deal with WordPress anymore because of the security issues.
I’m sure it won’t be the last. Jesse Jett was looking at publishing here but literally last night said that after what he’s seen me talking about here, he’s not sure it’s the right venue.
Only in the recent months. Basically since the launch of notes and the direct fight with Elon, before that nobody cared. Now it’s the flavor of the month & “all of a sudden” the legacy media discovered it could find engaged readers here. Coinciding with when Congress and Rachel Maddow both famously crapped on Substack in the spring.
Regarding Wordpress host a Wordpress site for you, they deplatformed Jay Dyer 3-4 year ago, locked him out of all of his content. No reason issued. I run a Wordpress site on my own in addition to Substack, it is a fair bit of work. I came to Substack because of the ability to collaborate and distribute my work with others without the interference from peeps like the WaPo lady you mentioned. Perhaps she’s the Substack version of Yackerino over on heX.
I run a self hosted wordpress site, so Wordpress can't "deplatform me."
just relaunched: https://indienewsnow.com
I don't publish my articles there but use it as a nicely presented news aggregator that links to the original articles, plus features the network I co-founded & a "Watch Live" page which embeds our livestream feed, platform free.
As far as Jay being censored, there are 2 different types of Wordpress sites - from wordpress.com where they provide a limited framework, or self-hosted from wordpress.org where you download the files and build your own on their open source platform. Pretty sure Jay ran the first type, unless his web host decided to part ways, in which case he could literally back up and move his entire site to another host easily. That's the big advantage of self-hosting. He could even get his own physical server literally in his house and host it, and there's nothing Wordpress could do about it.
Yes Jay was on Wordpress.com which would be somewhat analogous to Substack as a managed service.
I never messed with the dot com - the free version was too limiting vs the self hosted, which was always free, but you have to do more of the work yourself. I have a guy who helps me and he knows a LOT more about this stuff. Self hosted is not for the weak-willed, it is a slog & there is constant vigilance, maintenance & upkeep.
A plugin update can break your whole site, and there’s nobody to call to fix it.
Your site can get hacked and redirected to a p0rn site, and you have to find someone with the skills who can hopefully fix it (this happened to me 10 years ago!)
It scared me away from self hosted for a long time, and I dipped my toe back in last year. Hired a guy on Fiverr to build me an aggregator framework. Looked and worked great for a minute but it was shady. It would scrape the entire article & change a few words to make it look like an original.
I never advertised or mentioned it, but a crawler found it and it got caught by one of the writers after a few months, who got (correctly) upset. I then started to change it so it redirected vs scraping, which started the issues on the site.
Apparently the host I chose also didn’t update their back end to keep up with the latest version of PHP (I have no idea what that means or why it matters but it’s a BIG DEAL) so I moved hosts from shared space to a Virtual Private Server & am making a real try at it this time.
I’m a software dev, and still it’s a lot of work. The plugins are a mix of good and bad. If have the behavior you want and don’t do auto upgrade you are for the most part good until one of the plugins requires an update and the remote service you rely with the plugin ceases to operate nicely.
Substack needs to maximize revenue, because remember, it's only taking 10%. So book authors, NYT best sellers and political commentators do get special promotions to be sure. As well as celebrities, influencers and people with strong social media followings. Substack really was only active since 2018 (technically founded near the end of 2017), contrary to popular belief it's barely scaled yet. To become profitable it needs its biggest personalities to exceed expectations in their performance. Since it's all about paid subs.
Influencer marketing is what you do when you are a relatively cash poor startup without a marketing budget. So growth in the app and otherwise is quasi-organic and riding the coattails of the actual writers. A very small number of people actually read its own promotions.
I personally don't care who they promote or why, I just want the ecosystem to grow faster. And not just in the U.S. It's not a meritocracy, your body of work over the last decade actually matters. Very unfortunate that Substack grew off the back of political writers and Twitter, but that's the choice they made at the time.
It's a subscription network, the only metric that actually matters is paid subs growth. There's no reason why you can't have a beehiiv, a ConvertKit, a Locals and a Substack. Many Substack writers have a LinkedIn Newsletter for example. It's never been an this vs. that as paid subs are only one way to make revenue.
Honestly, Wix is where it’s at! You can have a subscription newsletter/blog there, which I had recently learned.
They used to have a clunky site builder & charged for additional webpages. Is that still the case? I’ll take a look
It’s changed a ton! Checkout my website for an example. I did this for free. SEO stuff is hidden by purchasing domain and stuff tho
It seems like Locals is the closest 1:1 comparison, but there’s nothing quite like this. Hamish knows that.
Yeah, but if it becomes too toxic, a lot of creative will absolutely leave because, even if our content is political, politics and art can never get along. Probably would be a smart idea if the creatives of substack got together and made our own list/recs for newsletters. Maybe a newsletter swap or something? That’s popular among published fiction authors
Thanks for the shoutout! Something to keep monitoring the coming months and onwards. Looking around at the media/online landscape and enforcement of 'anti-disinformation' laws, I can't see how the hammer cannot drop on Substack at some point. It is worrying to see that the necessary safeguards / policies are not in place, meaning that they are either unaware or don't care about it. If anyone knows a different way of looking at it, I'd love to hear it. It's weird to see substack leadership not get substack somehow.
I propose channels/newsletter like ours stick together. If Substack does not work out we move elsewhere, together, and take our audiences with us. Together we're stronger and can support each other.
Absolutely, Robert. Solidarity & a bigger group of subs we can collectively bring will almost certainly attract someone like Locals, which was acquired by Rumble & where Glenn Greenwald went. I think he has some stake in the company too. I’m going to start looking
So I am supposed to be disappointed someone left because Substack isn’t a woke monoculture like all other media social or otherwise? I’m not!
Not at all. I don’t want corporate media people taking over and then promoted by the platfodm
They are trying to turn it into that. Hence the warning
Bullshit I read the article by the music guy/girl/thing and it's a complaint was about Richard Hananina and muh "white nationalism," sob, which guess what is the cry of people who want to use authoritarian force to impose woke ideas. Woke already controls all other social media platforms, corporate media, academia, the state, and corporate HR and advertising departments, isn't that enough? Monocultures suck!
My only complaint about Hanania is he is kind of milque toast these days and seems to have sold out the Bulwark + neo-con war monger crowd. I have unsubscribed from you guys and will not be resubscribing unless you provide strong proof you are in the fight against CRT, the Russia proxy war, and the people transing our kids, adios, and good luck. I have an interest in at least touching base with leftists with a pure material class analysis, synthetic Breadtube style woke "leftism" is a non starter to me, good luck.
If you don’t know where I stand on Russia-Ukraine then go ahead and unsub but we are on the same side here. We are staunchly against the NATO Proxy war, and not going to beg you to stay,
I’m not talking about Hannania. My concern is pushing Nate Silver, Andrew Sullivan & many other corporate media “personalities”
Why did you prominently link to that music thing (I don't want to misgender it giggle) whose clear and obvious agenda is turn Substack into a venue where any right wing thought isn't allowed? I hate authoritarian censors MORE than I hate corporations which in themselves I am none to fond of.
FUCK THAT!
What music thing! In my article? Which one?
I guess it was in the comments but you responded to the comment featuring this link with a big thumbs up. People like this can go to a dumbed down cultivated pasture like Mastadon, this is the wildlands.
https://mxqidlove.substack.com/p/goodbye-substack?r=1pga91&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
This is what I published
https://open.substack.com/pub/indiemediatoday/p/not-you-too-substack-stay-out-of-promotion?r=539iu&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Yeah, i got pissed about it too.
The full article is better (just) than the note.
Just be agnostic, don’t recommend anyone on here.
But at least it’s not this, yet :
https://substack.com/@jamesrichardson/note/c-39857003?r=b9soy&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
The insincere phrase "leaning in" is one of the most common toppings on the word salad garbage pile that includes "let's unpack this" and other lame Ted Talkisms for people who want to sound like they are being smarter than they actually are.
Let me add "we have heard your concerns" to that list
Yes yes and yes!!! I feel like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally reading your post today Stephanie. Why aren’t more screaming about this?
I didn’t even realize I used the damn phrase until I listened to the audio version! LOLOLOLOL flogging myself appropriately
I didn't know and I am quite alarmed by this news, so thanks for breaking it. I will try to cover this more on my Substack this week and link to your piece on it. The last thing Substack needs is some "communications professional from the Washington Post."
BTW, WordPress.com censors - they are the hosted version of their site but they kicked off one of the biggest radical feminist blogs years ago over criticizing gender ideology. The WordPress software is very powerful but it's also very easily hacked if you don't keep on it with constant plugin and software code updates. If I had to move from here I guess I'd go to Locals, though I'm not familiar with Ghost, are they good?
I was talking more the self-hosted wordpress.org which is different from the .com
If you do use the WordPress software find a host that is pro free speech and will manage the security for you - because it is sooo easily hacked. I used to do web development and I've gotten to the point where I just don't want to deal with WordPress anymore because of the security issues.
I have one thankfully
Namecheap supports Ukraine 100%. They forced several sites to move. It wasn't about separating nutters from journalists, only about taking a side.
We lost a musician already
https://open.substack.com/pub/mxqidlove/p/goodbye-substack?r=1pga91&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
I’m sure it won’t be the last. Jesse Jett was looking at publishing here but literally last night said that after what he’s seen me talking about here, he’s not sure it’s the right venue.
Are you trying to turn Substack into just another woke monoculture? If so FUCK YOU! Unsubscribe!
That’s very telling!
Only in the recent months. Basically since the launch of notes and the direct fight with Elon, before that nobody cared. Now it’s the flavor of the month & “all of a sudden” the legacy media discovered it could find engaged readers here. Coinciding with when Congress and Rachel Maddow both famously crapped on Substack in the spring.