Newsletter

2024-11-17

It's time for me to leave Twitter.

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

Building a community online: a personal experience.

Let’s talk about building a community online, not just selling products. Blogs, newsletters, and social media can be used to connect with like-minded people. I’m interested in an authentic and fulfilling way to build an online presence. What about you?

From time to time, I see people complaining on social media about how they miss the old days when blogs were so prevalent. I never reply, but I do have this answer ready to fire.

—Blogs still exist. There are plenty of them being updated every day.

And the second part of the answer would be: —Start one!

I mentioned the above because this blog post you are currently reading was inspired by another blog post from Molly White, which was inspired by a Platformer post. And it was a post on Mastodon that made me aware of all this.

What I’m trying to say is that blogs and social media can and should coexist and help each other. Let’s also add newsletters to that mix as I try to connect all my thoughts to write this post.

A few days ago, I finally left Substack, and Casey’s post on Platformer also discusses his decision to leave. Of course, his newsletter is much larger than mine, but some of his reasons line up with my decision.

Substack was never my first choice, but I needed a place to go after Revue was discontinued by Twitter, and Substack had this seamless import feature. I’m not going into details again because I have already explained it here and here, but like Casey, I love my blog and website, and I use a newsletter to make people aware of my new posts.

All I’m looking for is a gradual, but real, growth. That’s it. In other words, a community, not numbers. Here’s how he puts it:

VCP 5 - #Substack: is the honeymoon over?

If someone is following you on Substack, there is no email address, and if you want to switch services, you won’t be able to take the followers with you. That’s not a newsletter. It’s social media.

Transcript

2024-05-01

I just finished recording the next podcast episode about why I’m leaving Substack and how ironic it is that Ghost is opening up by adopting the ActivityPub protocol while Substack is becoming a social media platform. 🤔 Hmm, the Fediverse is a good candidate for the main topic of the podcast.

2024-04-26

Time to say goodbye to Substack.

The whole point of having a newsletter is to control the distribution of content.

I don’t know when this started, but I’m almost certain it wasn’t possible to just follow people on Substack before. I also don’t know if they are promoting or stimulating the “follow” option, but the number of people following me without subscribing to my newsletter is increasing every day.

Below is the difference, clipped from Substacks Help Center:

Follower: They’ll see your notes and some reading activity such as post likes. When someone follows you, you won’t receive their email, so they won’t get posts in their inbox.

Free subscriber: They’ll subscribe to your Substack and receive free posts via email and/or the Substack app. They’ll automatically follow you and see your notes in their feed.

In other words, if someone is following you, there is no email address, and if you want to switch services, you won’t be able to take the followers with you. That’s not a newsletter. It’s social media.

In a world where more and more services are embracing to the Fediverse, Substack’s move to a closed system is mind-boggling to me. But just leaving the service wasn’t enough. I had to share this information with you. So, if you have a newsletter on Substack, maybe it’s time to start to reevaluate your strategy.

I’m not sure when I’ll be leaving, but it’s likely to happen sooner than later. For now, if you want to make sure to follow me to my next newsletter chapter and keep getting my monthly emails, please don’t follow me. Subscribe.

2023-01-02

Maybe indirect revenue is not a thing

Like most of us, I don’t know much about Twitter’s current situation, but I would like to share my thoughts on the recent shutdown of Revue, a newsletter service the company bought in January 2021.

I understand that sometimes ending services that are not profitable is the only option, but what about the indirect revenue these services might be making? Furthermore, Revue was actually earning some money since there were paid newsletters hosted there.

Like many people, I moved to Mastodon several months ago, but since I was using Revue as my newsletter provider, I knew that I would not be able to completely disconnect from Twitter. In other words, I would still see and click on some ads and maybe even become a Blue subscriber. Anyway, all that is in the past now. Switching to Substack was effortless.

My point is that I was already going to the site less and less, and the only reason I don’t plan to delete my account is because I’ve already been impersonated on YouTube once and don’t want to take any chances on other social media.