The problem is that it is really the only viable platform for independent articles/blogs these days. That is already a ridiculously small potential audience (people who can read AND people who are willing to pay for content). Cutting out the one platform that got any traction is as good as quitting.
It is similar to why businesses (which is what we are talking about) couldn’t leave twitter until like a year and a half ago or whenever bluesky went open sign ups. Yeah, it is a platform owned by nazis and infested with them but… it is also the only way to advertise said businesses and have any hope of surviving. That said, once bluesky gained traction there is absolutely zero reason to not, at the very least, diversify (preferably dropping musknet entirely).
For Substack? Ghost is an increasingly viable platform. But just look around here for any time someone posts a link to a 404 media article and you get “Ugh. Fucking scammers want to rugpull and steal all my personal information” for… wanting ANY email to be used for a free account to just limit the impact of bot/ai scraping.
Its less that “more people are ok with Nazis than we want to admit”… especially considering many of the people on substack are talking about said fucking Nazis. The problem is that “fewer people are willing to support independent media than we want to admit”. It is the same logic of “if I like a youtube channel I’ll give them money on their patreon” that is patently flawed.
I use Ghost for my blog and don’t have any trackers nor do I require emails.
So I wouldn’t attribute that to Ghost but rather attribute it to 404Media.
That said, I disagree, there are blogging platforms other than Substack. Sub stack is just the current popular choice and people are too lazy to move unless they personally have a problem.
Unfortunately blogging next to Nazi propaganda isn’t a problem for those people.
But just look around here for any time someone posts a link to a 404 media article and you get “Ugh. Fucking scammers want to rugpull and steal all my personal information” for… wanting ANY email to be used for a free account to just limit the impact of bot/ai scraping.
I don’t want to create a fucking account on every single fucking website I enter to read a shit article about some random bullshit
That’s just making the internet even shittier place than it already is. Telling your readers to eat a hatful because scrapers are not respecting robots.txt? Please step on lego
404 media doesn’t make you create an account, they just send you a link to your email, but having to create a throwaway email every time so they can’t track what I read is a hassle I just don’t care enough for. I’ll either skip the article or use a proxy.
So true, but I think Patreon will be the place to submit my articles. I deleted my Substack over this. You can make your post free and offer paid teirs what I do.
Good on you even if I hate Patreon’s usability for just about anything
But if you haven’t already, I would recommend doing some research about why so many writers/creators have stuck with substack. I want to say Aaron Rupar actually talked about this and I would be shocked if the 404/Aftermath crews didn’t. I remember reading and basically nodding my head and acknowledging it was all way above my head but… these are the people who would both know and care.
Yes, this has come up repeatedly over the years.
The problem is that it is really the only viable platform for independent articles/blogs these days. That is already a ridiculously small potential audience (people who can read AND people who are willing to pay for content). Cutting out the one platform that got any traction is as good as quitting.
It is similar to why businesses (which is what we are talking about) couldn’t leave twitter until like a year and a half ago or whenever bluesky went open sign ups. Yeah, it is a platform owned by nazis and infested with them but… it is also the only way to advertise said businesses and have any hope of surviving. That said, once bluesky gained traction there is absolutely zero reason to not, at the very least, diversify (preferably dropping musknet entirely).
For Substack? Ghost is an increasingly viable platform. But just look around here for any time someone posts a link to a 404 media article and you get “Ugh. Fucking scammers want to rugpull and steal all my personal information” for… wanting ANY email to be used for a free account to just limit the impact of bot/ai scraping.
Its less that “more people are ok with Nazis than we want to admit”… especially considering many of the people on substack are talking about said fucking Nazis. The problem is that “fewer people are willing to support independent media than we want to admit”. It is the same logic of “if I like a youtube channel I’ll give them money on their patreon” that is patently flawed.
I use Ghost for my blog and don’t have any trackers nor do I require emails.
So I wouldn’t attribute that to Ghost but rather attribute it to 404Media.
That said, I disagree, there are blogging platforms other than Substack. Sub stack is just the current popular choice and people are too lazy to move unless they personally have a problem.
Unfortunately blogging next to Nazi propaganda isn’t a problem for those people.
I don’t want to create a fucking account on every single fucking website I enter to read a shit article about some random bullshit
That’s just making the internet even shittier place than it already is. Telling your readers to eat a hatful because scrapers are not respecting robots.txt? Please step on lego
404 media doesn’t make you create an account, they just send you a link to your email, but having to create a throwaway email every time so they can’t track what I read is a hassle I just don’t care enough for. I’ll either skip the article or use a proxy.
So true, but I think Patreon will be the place to submit my articles. I deleted my Substack over this. You can make your post free and offer paid teirs what I do.
Good on you even if I hate Patreon’s usability for just about anything
But if you haven’t already, I would recommend doing some research about why so many writers/creators have stuck with substack. I want to say Aaron Rupar actually talked about this and I would be shocked if the 404/Aftermath crews didn’t. I remember reading and basically nodding my head and acknowledging it was all way above my head but… these are the people who would both know and care.
Yeah but it would require me to go to Substack and I won’t do that.