Platforms are problematic
Substack has a Nazi problem
So, I’ve really liked using Substack. They don’t charge anything up front, they make it easy to set things up to get paid subscriptions, things like that.
But they have a Nazi problem.
A lot of people have written about the Nazi problem, so right this minute I’m not feeling like rehashing it beyond saying that they’re basically pulling the Musk card, saying free speech means Nazis get to talk too.
Now, if they were literally just a hosting platform, Digital Ocean (which is where I host traditional virtual machines) or Ghost (where my old fiction site was), with no content recommendation or attempts to be algorithmic whatsoever, then maybe, just maybe, I could let it go. But they’re not. They’ve been actively trying to surface people’s content algorithmically, which means, basically, they’re actively platforming Nazis.
Meanwhile, that same active content algorithm magic whatever hasn’t actually done much for me. Most of the people who have found me here, already knew me, or were referred directly by somebody who knew me. There are 123 of you, 10 of whom are paid subscribers, and I’m grateful to every single one of you for being here, but most of you already knew who I was!
The main issue right now is time. I want to preserve continuity for this publication while moving it elsewhere, but I need time in order to do that, and I don’t have the time right this minute. So for now, this minute, probably the next few weeks unless I rearrange some time, the publication stays here and I keep doing what I’ve been doing.
For the next stage, I’m probably moving back to Ghost, the platform I also have Mikey’s Microfiction on. I need to decide if I’m going with a second instance there that carries over what I’ve been doing here, or whether I’m going to try to meld it with my old site. Another option is to self-host it, which has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Either way, everyone who sticks with me will be carried over to the new site, including paid subscribers carrying over as paid, to keep the disruption minimal.
Please bear with me through this interim period and the changes!