I was amazed that Notes ever didn’t feel like Twitter. As a product person, I’m a big believer in the environment you build for users being determinative of how they interact (in the aggregate and long run, anyway).
A long, long time ago, I used to write on a platform called Urbis. It was a platform for fiction writers to post content and get critical feedback from other writers. The way the product worked, you received credit for writing feedback for other writers which you could then spend on unlocking (ie getting to actually see) comments and feedback that other writers left on your work.
They had specific mechanisms, as well, that gave you more credit for more substantive feedback (eg you didn’t get any credit for leaving a comment to the effect of “cool story”).
This all contributed to much more thoughtful, substantive engagement.
Now, this didn’t make for a successful business because it wasn’t incentivizing the aggregation of massive amounts of attention that could then be monetized via ads...but it did encourage a lot of thoughtful interaction.
People have almost always cared more about themselves. We restrain our ego when part of a community, or let it go and become a leader or beaten. Social media allowed ego to bypass the need for others. Getting meaningful interaction is possible, but abnormal. So my plan is to start a town in a desert with a sea view, and invite 150 people whose brains or bodies I admire to live with me. They'll leave the world behind to raise my mind and my dick. They'll pay their own expenses (and mine). We'll have coffee at dawn and beer at dusk. In between, we'll share books, watch foreign movies, listen to rock music, play board games etc. We'll talk like it's the end of the world and the beginning of forever. They'll love me and I them. It'll be utopia because, after all, it's only a plan.
Greetings from New Zealand, Peter S. The quality of the comments you are attracting says something about your work and, I hope something about this platform.
In Toronto, where I used to live, Queen Street West between University Avenue and Bathurst Street was the hip, cool, artsy part of town. Word got around and it became more popular, rents went up, and the artist run galleries, used book stores, opp shops, great cafes, and everything else that made it a destination for locals moved further and further West, where rents were cheaper and the neighbourhoods were more down market. Queen West lost its vibe but kept its reputation. Now, its where you find expensive label shops and tourists.
Maybe social media platforms are a bit like this. Maybe we will always have to keep our bags packed and be prepared to move on when the time comes.
Yep, I'm one of the skittish ones. The other piece is that I'm also one of those who did not gain much more than incremental traction on Substack. I don't write the proper sort of fiction that engages the Substack readers; my blogging doesn't gain much attention, either. I put a couple of years worth of time on this platform and, well...these days it's pretty much a time suck. I don't want to be terminally online, which is what seems to be rewarded on Substack, and my nonfiction is not exactly what I want to be known for writing. If I want to get involved in a social media slapfest, there are other sites with people I engage with who aren't here and won't be here now, thanks to all the Nazi and extremist publicity.
Since I went through something somewhat like this on Medium, it's clear that for me, at least, the best choice is to opt out.
Oh, I'll still pop up on Notes. But once I test my new distribution method and I discover it works, then I'll archive everything with a redirect to sign up for my current site. I am very glad these days that I hung onto my self-hosted WordPress site and we'll see what SendFox does for distribution. I had to find someone to be a newsletter host anyway since TinyLetter shut down, and up until November I was thinking that Substack would temporarily be the place.
I see some problems arising on the horizon, and...better to have my escape hatch lined up.
This is so good. I think the problem is, well, us. As a great philosopher once said, wherever you go there you are. Musk is certainly to blame for the disaster Twitter has become (I am one of the hobos still there) but no matter the villain or the platform, the constant is always people. We can’t help ourselves.
As a not-great-but-not-horrible writer, embarrassing arm-chair philosopher, not-at-all-confident artist, mystic desert, and a weakling barely able to lift my own spirits, I wish you all the best on Substack (1).
You’ve got a bold, confident persona and experiences that not many have or would have the courage to go looking for. I think you could do well here. I bet that many, like me, like to read authors who are very different from themselves. Writing offers a safe opportunity to visit places we would never go and lives we never could have lived.
(1) However, I am a father of two boys that I’m very proud of. And that makes up for the rest of it. Mostly.
I've read several Substack reaction posts, and this is the one I liked the most. You didn't begin by playing Iron Maiden's 'Run to the Hills', but instead put your dick in the middle of the balls.
My problem with Substack is that it only pays writers from the richest Western countries. Excluding the majority of the world must be considered purposeful.
I'm new to substack, so I don't know how it worked before I joined. In my few weeks here, I've met some amazing writers, and my intelligence has increased by a factor of.5 just by reading amazing work like this one. It's refreshing. I hope it remains like this.
I just started over here after I left my original Wordpress site, which felt totally dead. As a newbie I feel kind of awkward in this Substack metadiscussion. It feels like I am visiting family abroad and upon arriving I walk into some huge family fight and I just have to wait for it to blow over before I can say hi. Let's hope things return to normal (whatever that is?) and all will be swell once more, but honestly, put too many people together and we will get shitty even when we all try not to be.
When social media arrived in the mid 2000s and grow into the junk that it is today, blog writing was slowly pushed to the periphery. Again Substack has revived blog in a newsletter way and brought to us the quality of the Internet when it was beginning to emerge. It began to re-emerge what was best for the readers and build your own community where cordial and meaningful relationships are nurtured. The noise on SM media was getting loud and those who make lots of noise were rewarded. Notes on Substack, I think (though it might not be perfect in the way we want to work), is a tool for writers to share their work, interact, and comment. However a few might deviate from this. Generally, Substack has given me a writer, from a third world Africa (Kenya), to again revive my writing career after unsuccessful pitching on MSM which has been as well captured by the political class. I can now write my heart out jovially. I can relate with my small community on the Internet. I can find fulfillment with my readers.
Six degrees of separation is the theory that any person on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries
Well said. I am a bit spooked, hit by the full reality that this platform is in the hands of a few tech bros and their vulture-capitalist backers who could do literally anything they want with it. At the same time, my interactions on Notes have been uplifting, interesting, challenging (in good ways), a real sense of discovery prevails. It’s not like Twitter ever was for me - though I followed many brilliant journalists and urbanists and artists and neighbors.
I’d add another reason for caution: the EU does have laws about what internet platforms can host, and Substack will have to scale very fast indeed to absorb the cost of fines.
I was amazed that Notes ever didn’t feel like Twitter. As a product person, I’m a big believer in the environment you build for users being determinative of how they interact (in the aggregate and long run, anyway).
A long, long time ago, I used to write on a platform called Urbis. It was a platform for fiction writers to post content and get critical feedback from other writers. The way the product worked, you received credit for writing feedback for other writers which you could then spend on unlocking (ie getting to actually see) comments and feedback that other writers left on your work.
They had specific mechanisms, as well, that gave you more credit for more substantive feedback (eg you didn’t get any credit for leaving a comment to the effect of “cool story”).
This all contributed to much more thoughtful, substantive engagement.
Now, this didn’t make for a successful business because it wasn’t incentivizing the aggregation of massive amounts of attention that could then be monetized via ads...but it did encourage a lot of thoughtful interaction.
People have almost always cared more about themselves. We restrain our ego when part of a community, or let it go and become a leader or beaten. Social media allowed ego to bypass the need for others. Getting meaningful interaction is possible, but abnormal. So my plan is to start a town in a desert with a sea view, and invite 150 people whose brains or bodies I admire to live with me. They'll leave the world behind to raise my mind and my dick. They'll pay their own expenses (and mine). We'll have coffee at dawn and beer at dusk. In between, we'll share books, watch foreign movies, listen to rock music, play board games etc. We'll talk like it's the end of the world and the beginning of forever. They'll love me and I them. It'll be utopia because, after all, it's only a plan.
Greetings from New Zealand, Peter S. The quality of the comments you are attracting says something about your work and, I hope something about this platform.
In Toronto, where I used to live, Queen Street West between University Avenue and Bathurst Street was the hip, cool, artsy part of town. Word got around and it became more popular, rents went up, and the artist run galleries, used book stores, opp shops, great cafes, and everything else that made it a destination for locals moved further and further West, where rents were cheaper and the neighbourhoods were more down market. Queen West lost its vibe but kept its reputation. Now, its where you find expensive label shops and tourists.
Maybe social media platforms are a bit like this. Maybe we will always have to keep our bags packed and be prepared to move on when the time comes.
Internet gentrification - now that's a concept!
They even got the saying wrong: you're supposed to EAT the bag of dicks, not suck them.
Damn straight, and to go even further, I believe the ideal version of this imagery involves a bowl, not a bag.
Yep, I'm one of the skittish ones. The other piece is that I'm also one of those who did not gain much more than incremental traction on Substack. I don't write the proper sort of fiction that engages the Substack readers; my blogging doesn't gain much attention, either. I put a couple of years worth of time on this platform and, well...these days it's pretty much a time suck. I don't want to be terminally online, which is what seems to be rewarded on Substack, and my nonfiction is not exactly what I want to be known for writing. If I want to get involved in a social media slapfest, there are other sites with people I engage with who aren't here and won't be here now, thanks to all the Nazi and extremist publicity.
Since I went through something somewhat like this on Medium, it's clear that for me, at least, the best choice is to opt out.
Oh, I'll still pop up on Notes. But once I test my new distribution method and I discover it works, then I'll archive everything with a redirect to sign up for my current site. I am very glad these days that I hung onto my self-hosted WordPress site and we'll see what SendFox does for distribution. I had to find someone to be a newsletter host anyway since TinyLetter shut down, and up until November I was thinking that Substack would temporarily be the place.
I see some problems arising on the horizon, and...better to have my escape hatch lined up.
This is so good. I think the problem is, well, us. As a great philosopher once said, wherever you go there you are. Musk is certainly to blame for the disaster Twitter has become (I am one of the hobos still there) but no matter the villain or the platform, the constant is always people. We can’t help ourselves.
A few people followed me here from other apps. I am just starting. I hope to contribute to Substack in a non shitification way.
As a not-great-but-not-horrible writer, embarrassing arm-chair philosopher, not-at-all-confident artist, mystic desert, and a weakling barely able to lift my own spirits, I wish you all the best on Substack (1).
You’ve got a bold, confident persona and experiences that not many have or would have the courage to go looking for. I think you could do well here. I bet that many, like me, like to read authors who are very different from themselves. Writing offers a safe opportunity to visit places we would never go and lives we never could have lived.
(1) However, I am a father of two boys that I’m very proud of. And that makes up for the rest of it. Mostly.
Thank you very much for the motivating words. Much appreciated.
just got a new subscriber. most come from facebook where my daily lulz and twice weekly women's history articles have a modest following.
I've read several Substack reaction posts, and this is the one I liked the most. You didn't begin by playing Iron Maiden's 'Run to the Hills', but instead put your dick in the middle of the balls.
My problem with Substack is that it only pays writers from the richest Western countries. Excluding the majority of the world must be considered purposeful.
I'm new to substack, so I don't know how it worked before I joined. In my few weeks here, I've met some amazing writers, and my intelligence has increased by a factor of.5 just by reading amazing work like this one. It's refreshing. I hope it remains like this.
https://purplemessenger.substack.com/
I just started over here after I left my original Wordpress site, which felt totally dead. As a newbie I feel kind of awkward in this Substack metadiscussion. It feels like I am visiting family abroad and upon arriving I walk into some huge family fight and I just have to wait for it to blow over before I can say hi. Let's hope things return to normal (whatever that is?) and all will be swell once more, but honestly, put too many people together and we will get shitty even when we all try not to be.
"It is yet unknown whether I’ve already written the most popular thing I will ever write, and I think I’d like that to stay unknown, for my sanity"
I have almost certainly already written my most popular thing. Nothing else has ever even rippled its wake.
https://ed.ted.com/lessons/at-what-moment-are-you-dead-randall-hayes
i look forward to reading more of your complaints on internet things.
keep up the great words :)
When social media arrived in the mid 2000s and grow into the junk that it is today, blog writing was slowly pushed to the periphery. Again Substack has revived blog in a newsletter way and brought to us the quality of the Internet when it was beginning to emerge. It began to re-emerge what was best for the readers and build your own community where cordial and meaningful relationships are nurtured. The noise on SM media was getting loud and those who make lots of noise were rewarded. Notes on Substack, I think (though it might not be perfect in the way we want to work), is a tool for writers to share their work, interact, and comment. However a few might deviate from this. Generally, Substack has given me a writer, from a third world Africa (Kenya), to again revive my writing career after unsuccessful pitching on MSM which has been as well captured by the political class. I can now write my heart out jovially. I can relate with my small community on the Internet. I can find fulfillment with my readers.
Why six degrees of separation is misleading.
Six degrees of separation is the theory that any person on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries
Well said. I am a bit spooked, hit by the full reality that this platform is in the hands of a few tech bros and their vulture-capitalist backers who could do literally anything they want with it. At the same time, my interactions on Notes have been uplifting, interesting, challenging (in good ways), a real sense of discovery prevails. It’s not like Twitter ever was for me - though I followed many brilliant journalists and urbanists and artists and neighbors.
I’d add another reason for caution: the EU does have laws about what internet platforms can host, and Substack will have to scale very fast indeed to absorb the cost of fines.