Social-Media
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 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.
Visiting Twitter just to check Federico Simionato's posts about Evernote
In yesterday’s video (below), I complained about having to visit Twitter just to check Federico Simionato’s posts about Evernote. I mentioned that I tried to create an automation on IFTTT, but was unable to do so because that is now a paid feature. And Zapier, which is the service I use, doesn’t work with Twitter anymore.
Well, the solution came from a friend who is also a subscriber. He created the automation and then shared the notebook with me. How cool is that? Thank you, Fernando! 💚
PS. I have an automation that shares my posts across multiple social media sites, but I’m a happy Mastodon user. That’s where you’ll find me in non-automation mode, aka, my Human Form. 😄
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:
“Let’s get into some specifics. As I write this, Platformer now has 190,196 subscribers — up about 35,000 from last year. That’s a much slower growth rate than year three, when in the midst of Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, our audience doubled. But it also feels like more honest, durable growth than we saw in 2023. Unplugged from the dark pattern of Substack’s growth hacks, we still managed to grow significantly.”
That honest and durable growth is also the same feeling I have about my social media presence, especially the Fediverse. And Casey also talks about this in his recent post. Ghost, where his newsletter is hosted now, has this incredible plan to convert itself into a fully integrated ActivityPub service, which I’m following step by step. I feel like I’m stocking them in a frequent search for any piece of new news about their progress.
If they can accomplish the vision the CEO shared on an episode of the Dot Social podcast, not only will we be able to comment using an ActivityPub compatible account, but also subscribe to any newsletter. Imagine adding your username to a subscription box and seeing the new issues of the newsletter on your Fediverse app of choice. That’s mind-blowing!
Another thing Casey says is:
“We also stopped posting to X. It felt bad contributing to a site that had actively dismantled its own content moderation operation and predictably soon filled up with hate speech of all sorts.”
I agree with him, and leaving has also been on my list of goals for a while now, even though I’m only cross-posting to Twitter. Anyway, the Fediverse seems to be the solution again.
Like he pointed out, more and more people are switching to Threads. I would prefer them to be choosing Mastodon, but since Threads is gradually implementing ActivityPub features to the platform, I guess it’s going to be okay. All I have to do is keep following people from Mastodon, like I’m already doing.
If you haven’t, please start educating yourself on the Fediverse. It’s such a great project. And go find some blogs to read. There are many of them out there, publishing top-quality content.
I finally said goodbye to Substack
It took me much longer than I anticipated, but today I finally said goodbye to Substack. As previously mentioned, what initially began as a newsletter platform has evolved into a social media platform. Since then, the number of people who follow me instead of subscribing via email has been increasing every day.
This position is contrary to many of my beliefs regarding a free and open web and federated social media.
As you read this, I have already moved all the emails to the new system hosted by my website provider. If everything goes well, the next time I write an article, the email will be sent from the new system, and you’ll be able to read it here on my cherished website.
Have your website and your domain.
I am seeing many discussions regarding the fairness or legality of the judge’s decision in the Twitter case in Brazil. I’m no specialist on the matter and cannot talk about that. But there is also a lot of debate over which social media platform is the best one to migrate to. And, in this instance, I have something to say.
It appears to me that moving to another platform is the same as moving problems from one place to another. Today, it was the judge’s decision; tomorrow, it may be another situation on another platform.
Those are your thoughts, memories, pictures, etc. Have your website and your domain. Post there first and share on all social media. You can easily move to another space by doing that, but I went even further. I write on Obsidian and use the amazing Micro Publish plugin to publish on my blog. From there, the post is automatically cross-posted on many social media sites.
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.
Social media is destroying our personal history
I often talk about how starting a YouTube channel meant the end of my podcast, but yesterday, while jogging, I realized that something similar had already happened to me. When I started my podcast, I gradually stopped blogging.
The Way Back Machine has been my go-to website lately as I’m trying to figure out what happened to my online presence. It’s a challenge because I used different URLs throughout the years and was never that popular online. This means that there are many gaps in the Internet Archive. However, the transition from only blog posts to podcast episodes mixed with blog posts to finally only podcast episodes is evident.
It seems like the podcast was taking up more and more of my time, which in turn meant the end of blogging. Then, when I moved to YouTube, keeping a blog section on my site no longer made sense, and I moved to a more institutional website format. At the same time, social media was becoming more popular, and I probably started using only it to share content.
The problem is that most of that online past has been erased forever. Some of the services simply disappeared, and other times I closed my accounts. Fortunately, starting in 2008, I’ve been using Evernote to back up some of the content I was publishing. It’s not everything, but it’s enough to slowly re-create a portion of my online past on my own site.
What’s interesting is that the process of recreating my past is awakening my old passion for blogging. You are not seeing many recent publications here because I am spending most of the time filling in the gaps in the timeline by reformatting and republishing the old content I have in Evernote.
It seems like this is going to last forever, but I’m committed to taking it one step at a time. However, I’m not taking any chances this time. All my old content is being moved to Obsidian first, and then I upload it to Micro.blog using the Micro.publish plugin. This means that I have a local copy in an open format and an online version that I can also export if needed. And after a while, I came up with a workflow that I’m happy with and will soon share with you in a video.
You might be wondering why I’m wasting time on this. Actually, I have already asked myself that question, and I was unable to come up with any rational answer. But it feels good to have my past published in a space that I own and control. My domain and my website.
Anyway, if you also find that comforting, you might want to learn more about IndieWeb.
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.
I'm a Workflow Consultant and Content Creator driven by learning and passing it along. My interests span a wide range, but they must truly ignite my passion. Only then can I fully engage with a topic. [keep reading]
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