Substack is speedrunning the enshittification curve. “This latest intervention is indicative of their efforts to transition to a social media hub where they can sell ad space.” We can all see where this is going…now is a great time to get off.
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Comments 1
I recently set up a new blog but also wanted newsletter features with the possibility of making them paid someday. To my surprise, I actually landed on good ol’ Wordpress for it. People can now “subscribe” and get your posts through email automatically and it’s all “out of the box.” And they have options for paid and you can basically customize WO to do anything you want at this point. I just went for the lowest paid tier of their hosted thing to avoid the hassle of doing it myself and it’s actually a really good deal!
Wordpress seems to have somehow avoided enshittification so far and crossing fingers it will continue to do so.
But yeah there is no way in hell I even considered substack. At least with WP or Ghost, even the hosted versions, I can take my content and my domain with me pretty easily if I want to (and I keep local copies of my posts anyway.) I do not trust substack and the other VC fuelled hosting/newsletter sites at all to store my hard work and not fuck with it.
Hello! In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!
In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.
This is the name that'll be displayed next to comments you make on kottke.org; your email will not be displayed publicly. I'd encourage you to use your real name (or at least your first name and last initial) but you can also pick something that you go by when you participate in communities online. Choose something durable and reasonably unique (not "Me" or "anon"). Please don't change this often. No impersonation.
Note: I'm letting folks change their display names because the membership service that kottke.org uses collects full names and I thought some people might not want their names displayed publicly here. If it gets abused, I might disable this feature.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!