But you have to pay for Substack subscriptions to get the full content in a lot of cases and it's expensive. It's in no way comparable to old-school blogs in that regard, from a reader's standpoint. They were all free! I love reading people's Substacks but it's frustrating because you can only pay to subscribe to so many. It's just frustrating to read what seems like an interesting post and then get cut off, so it’s always tempting to pay for more subscriptions.
I think RSS needs a mention because from the users point of view it allowed you to bring disparate content into the one manageable feed. Similarly, when google killer it’s RSS reader, it was the end of an era, for me at least.
By contrast today my inbox is a nightmare and my substack subscriptions are just making it worse. When I get the urge to “have a read” I used to go to twitter, but that’s becoming more problematic, and mastodon hasn’t filled the gap (yet). I miss the old rss reader days.
Also this review should consider podcasts. Why is audio different to text in terms of distribution and consumption (or at least, subscription)? In terms of the points raised here, podcasts now are much like blogs were 20 years ago.
I turned off email notifications for Substack and now just go to the app and get notifications on my screen. The emails got to be too much once I'd subscribed to a bunch.
Those of us who just plodded along with being long-winded have noticed not all that much difference. Maybe part of this is motivated by something other than the specific interfaces and platforms that invite us to use them.
Because I changed my entire blogging diet 10 years ago, I have not had the pleasure of watching John Cole tear his hair out over what has happened to his former party and how "peak wingnut" has gone beyond what could have been imagined when that phrase was coined. But that site was a great success in terms of traffic because the posts were very sharp and succinct and the whole community kept idiots out. Twitter may have stopped the knack for the community taking responsibility for the level of discussion they will tolerate because there are so many rewards for dunking on idiots.
Yes, but Substack itself has some complicated disincentives towards fully implementing that. They want individual Substacks to do the work of incentivizing people to read (and pay for) other ones, but they don't especially want to build conversational tools that are (as they would have to be) indifferent about who is paying for what. I suspect they'll eventually use clusters of low-to-medium subscription Substacks that are in conversation with one another as a map of who to bundle together under a single fee structure and that will likely be bad for those of us who are eclectic about how we pay attention to other blogs/Substacks/whatever.
Agreed. I'm planning an attempt at a mini-blogosphere, based on the idea of recommendations in return for free subscriptions. As you say, Substack doesn't make it easy.
But you have to pay for Substack subscriptions to get the full content in a lot of cases and it's expensive. It's in no way comparable to old-school blogs in that regard, from a reader's standpoint. They were all free! I love reading people's Substacks but it's frustrating because you can only pay to subscribe to so many. It's just frustrating to read what seems like an interesting post and then get cut off, so it’s always tempting to pay for more subscriptions.
I think RSS needs a mention because from the users point of view it allowed you to bring disparate content into the one manageable feed. Similarly, when google killer it’s RSS reader, it was the end of an era, for me at least.
By contrast today my inbox is a nightmare and my substack subscriptions are just making it worse. When I get the urge to “have a read” I used to go to twitter, but that’s becoming more problematic, and mastodon hasn’t filled the gap (yet). I miss the old rss reader days.
Also this review should consider podcasts. Why is audio different to text in terms of distribution and consumption (or at least, subscription)? In terms of the points raised here, podcasts now are much like blogs were 20 years ago.
I turned off email notifications for Substack and now just go to the app and get notifications on my screen. The emails got to be too much once I'd subscribed to a bunch.
Try feedly dot com. It's a great RSS reader and you can add substack newsletters, too.
Those of us who just plodded along with being long-winded have noticed not all that much difference. Maybe part of this is motivated by something other than the specific interfaces and platforms that invite us to use them.
Because I changed my entire blogging diet 10 years ago, I have not had the pleasure of watching John Cole tear his hair out over what has happened to his former party and how "peak wingnut" has gone beyond what could have been imagined when that phrase was coined. But that site was a great success in terms of traffic because the posts were very sharp and succinct and the whole community kept idiots out. Twitter may have stopped the knack for the community taking responsibility for the level of discussion they will tolerate because there are so many rewards for dunking on idiots.
A big problem is the lack of interaction between Substacks. The tools (recommendations and sharing) are there, but it's not happening yet.
Yes, but Substack itself has some complicated disincentives towards fully implementing that. They want individual Substacks to do the work of incentivizing people to read (and pay for) other ones, but they don't especially want to build conversational tools that are (as they would have to be) indifferent about who is paying for what. I suspect they'll eventually use clusters of low-to-medium subscription Substacks that are in conversation with one another as a map of who to bundle together under a single fee structure and that will likely be bad for those of us who are eclectic about how we pay attention to other blogs/Substacks/whatever.
Agreed. I'm planning an attempt at a mini-blogosphere, based on the idea of recommendations in return for free subscriptions. As you say, Substack doesn't make it easy.
Very enjoyable, Dan.
As a pine tree, I thank you. So validating.