Are you in control of your content and how it is distributed?

I strongly agree with Nilay Patel when he talks about “leaning into federated distribution and owning your own distribution”. I’ve been advocating for that for a long time. But I don’t see the problem that he sees regarding waiting to know “which protocol will win”. There’s no need for that. Just have your domain and blog and post there first. The irony is that The Verge already has a good and active website. They could build a system to integrate it with all federated social media, like some services that already exist.

The tool I use to automatically cross-post is Micro.blog, which by the way has a beautiful integration with Bluesky, but that’s beyond the point and there are other options out there. In my case, I even have a local copy of everything by writing and publishing from Obsidian, but

that is not necessary. I believe the most important detail here is controlling your distribution if you are a creator.

That’s why, a few months ago, I finally left Substack. That’s not a newsletter anymore, it’s a trap! They are moving in the opposite direction of the open web. Instead of allowing users to control their audience, as all federated services are doing, Substack is locking every author into the platform, just like any other traditional social media.

Please note that when I say “leave,” I’m referring to not using the service. As a creator who was impersonated in the past, I try to do my best to protect my followers from scammers, and that’s why I rarely delete accounts from services I no longer use.

Anyway, from January 1, 2025, I’m not posting to Twitter anymore. Until then, I’ll be manually cross-posting there, and including in each tweet the information I’ll be leaving soon. Considering my recent Substack experience, I am confident that I will be fine. 

It’s been a few months since I left Substack, and I can undoubtedly say that it proved to be less problematic than anticipated. I still have a newsletter, but it’s now one that I fully control. Furthermore, my blog is federated, automatically cross-posting everything to Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads.

In other words, it was not less problematic than anticipated, it was actually much better than expected.