I've watched at least one decent blogger turn into something else since he moved to substack. Another person I kind of knew from participating in the same forums spends a lot of time talking about increasing his paid subscriber base, and doing trades with other subscribers for the same purpose. Fortunately, his ratio of things posted to things worth reading hasn't changed.
I understand their incentives. One of them is now quite successful on Substack; his previous line of work has obviously become his side hustle. The other's first really successful essay was about what it's like to be poor. His substack isn't big enough to replace his job, though he's come up in the employment world in part because of contacts made through blogging. But he's understandably very interested in a reliable supply of money.
But as a reader - I miss the patreon-supported blog the former used to have. Even the user interface (for commenting and reading comments) was better, never mind both the authorial content and the comments on it.
I also fear that substack will somehow turn out to be like Amazon - great while it's grabbing all the business and killing existing rivals, then increasingly hard to use/expensive once customers have few alternatives.
Meanwhile, substackers whose day job is or was in journalism seem to be the one exception to my observations of a tendency to declining quality after they begin posting to substack. And the substack commenting software, while substandard from a blogger's POV, is as good as or better than anything I've seen on a news site.
Personally, I'm glad I stuck with dated blogging software, not equipped with any means of monetizing my ramblings, and didn't follow up on my initial thoughts about substack of "new blogging platform? I should try it out".
Interesting post! "The other's first really successful essay was about what it's like to be poor." This was Resident Contrarian, right?
"Meanwhile, substackers whose day job is or was in journalism seem to be the one exception to my observations of a tendency to declining quality after they begin posting to substack." I agree. I think Substack has given a new lease of life to many journos who were shown the door, for whatever reason.
I've watched at least one decent blogger turn into something else since he moved to substack. Another person I kind of knew from participating in the same forums spends a lot of time talking about increasing his paid subscriber base, and doing trades with other subscribers for the same purpose. Fortunately, his ratio of things posted to things worth reading hasn't changed.
I understand their incentives. One of them is now quite successful on Substack; his previous line of work has obviously become his side hustle. The other's first really successful essay was about what it's like to be poor. His substack isn't big enough to replace his job, though he's come up in the employment world in part because of contacts made through blogging. But he's understandably very interested in a reliable supply of money.
But as a reader - I miss the patreon-supported blog the former used to have. Even the user interface (for commenting and reading comments) was better, never mind both the authorial content and the comments on it.
I also fear that substack will somehow turn out to be like Amazon - great while it's grabbing all the business and killing existing rivals, then increasingly hard to use/expensive once customers have few alternatives.
Meanwhile, substackers whose day job is or was in journalism seem to be the one exception to my observations of a tendency to declining quality after they begin posting to substack. And the substack commenting software, while substandard from a blogger's POV, is as good as or better than anything I've seen on a news site.
Personally, I'm glad I stuck with dated blogging software, not equipped with any means of monetizing my ramblings, and didn't follow up on my initial thoughts about substack of "new blogging platform? I should try it out".
Interesting post! "The other's first really successful essay was about what it's like to be poor." This was Resident Contrarian, right?
"Meanwhile, substackers whose day job is or was in journalism seem to be the one exception to my observations of a tendency to declining quality after they begin posting to substack." I agree. I think Substack has given a new lease of life to many journos who were shown the door, for whatever reason.
Yes, I was indeed thinking of RC.