The Case Against Substack. (icymi)

A recent Vulture piece considered nan entreaty of Substack. “Part promotional platform, portion social-media site, portion venue for rambling diary entries, Substack is attracting an expanding number of group who constitute lit for a living,” wrote Emma Alpern, earlier going connected to praise nan site’s hyper-specific offerings.

In our zip code, novelists for illustration Ottessa Moshfegh, George Saunders, and Junot Díaz are each making hay connected nan site. Meanwhile journalists, lately ousted from their mastheads successful bequest media, are starting to slouch towards Substehem. Commentators for illustration Margaret Sullivan, Jennifer Rubin, and erstwhile MSNBC big Mehdi Hassan tin each beryllium recovered caller successful nan stacks.

But complete nan past fewer years, Substack’s mislaid immoderate shine. In 2022, the tract was knocked for platforming TERF-y dislike speech. At nan time, Hamish McKenzie, a main founder, jumped to take sides nan site’s “decentralized approach” to contented moderation. Many writers, for illustration Grace Lavery, abandoned sub soon after.

Last year, nan institution was embroiled successful ungraded again aft an Atlantic investigation revealed “scores of white-supremacist, neo-Confederate, and explicitly Nazi newsletters” connected nan platform. An open missive from 247 Substackers Against Nazis went unanswered.  There were much defections, much hand-wringing calculations. But nan tract has continued to pull writers, readers, and mostly lukewarm coverage, arsenic we spot above.

Given that we now person respective well-publicized examples of management’s shaky ethics, nan lawsuit against nan level feels reasonably clear. Being a backstage equity venture, Substack straight profits from its creators, hateful and hopeful alike. So if you make aliases nonstop money disconnected subscriptions, nan large bad committee bites disconnected immoderate of that revenue.

And though Substack’s leaders could intervene connected nan moderation front, aliases moreover equivocate pinch a mealy-mouthed promise to look into their Nazi problem, they’ve consistently favored a bottommost line. Mostly, activity has stuck to nan ole free reside playbook we past saw deployed connected Elon Musk’s X.

On nan different hand, you could reason that each integer level backed by task superior is ethically compromised. And for writers who’ve sunk a batch into building flocks and relationships connected nan site, it’s difficult to reason that different shop would beryllium a full batch amended for nan world. This makes good sense, particularly if you’re bound to make a surviving disconnected it. But that brings america to nan bubble problem.

In a June 23rd newsletter, Ana Marie Cox, writer and laminitis of nan governmental blog Wonkette, predicted a Sub-comeuppance. Cox is 1 of a increasing group of business soothsayers who judge that arsenic Substack grows, the harder it will go for newcomers—and so, nan money men—to make their money.

As we’ve seen hap pinch nan large TV streamers, immoderate individualizing level risks subscription fatigue. Writing successful Wired, Steven Levy noted that amassing stacks successful lieu of “full-fledged publications” is “a unspeakable worth proposition.”

Likewise, Cox predicts that arsenic nan site’s unit to turn increases, “so will nan incentives to double down connected nan benignant of polarizing, high-engagement contented that gets attraction moreover if it poisons nan well.” This could time off creators who’ve gambled to enactment connected nan stack retired to dry, some ethically and financially.

And astatine what cost, really? My workfellow Drew Broussard hates nan full arena of attention-trap platforms. “It’s extractive SV capitalism astatine its worst,” he told me. “The world doesn’t require your newsletter.”

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Personally, I get being stuck connected this one. In a perpetually contracting media ecosystem, it’s difficult to blasted writers who’ve built followings anywhere. I publication and respect respective stacks, including these. And erstwhile it comes to nan exodus question, I thin to flock pinch different writers who person fled nan level for nan No Malice Palace. Writers who spell retired of their measurement successful goodbye notes to opportunity they don’t judge anyone other for sticking around.

On nan attention-trap phenom successful general, I’m a small little charmed by newsletters than immoderate because 1) I thin to emotion editors, and 2) especially if you want maine to pony up, I’d for illustration an thought that’s afloat baked. If everyone’s blogging for free, I fig we mightiness arsenic good Tumbl backmost to wherever we came from, successful nan glorious mid-aughts. But I cognize this skirts nan applicable aspects of today’s gig and hustle economy.

That said, if you’re a newsletter creator starting retired aliases contemplating a large change, you should cognize location are alternatives to Substack. Like Beehiiv, which markets itself arsenic much of a distribution instrumentality than a societal media platform. By making itself structurally chopped from nan baddies, guidance hopes to sidestep nan full content moderation snafu.

There’s besides Ghost, nan non-profit, unfastened entree tract that Platformer jumped to successful 2024. And Ana Marie Cox uses Buttondown. My pal, nan writer Gemma Kaneko, besides likes that 1 for its “nuts and bolts interface” and minimal tracking. She says it feels for illustration a zine, successful nan champion way.

But Drew’s constituent astir nan why of it all—especially erstwhile it comes to making money—does instrumentality to my skin. “A different newsletter level isn’t each I want, because newsletters aren’t nan reply to a disintegrating media ecosphere,” wrote Cox, in a akin spirit. “We request a world wherever a societal information nett protects risky writing. The thought that we tin hustle our measurement to information will only push america person to collapse. We don’t request amended devices arsenic overmuch arsenic we request each other.”