I don’t like the direction of Notes, videos and possibly other add-ons: they make an author’s articles bulk up, and one either has to abandon or unfollow others or “short-change” (in terms of serious attention) everyone. A machine that promises to be both a chop saw and a table saw compromises both functions.
Interesting. I'll have to look into BMAC. I like the idea of different subscription levels. Some people literally can't afford to send me $5 a month. I already use BMAC just so people can make one-time donations on Substack, and I've set the minimum at $5. Maybe it's time for a change.
It might be useful to you then since you can set those different sub levels. It is worth doing if you are going to send content to your BMAC supporters for sure. It only takes about a minute to copy and paste the article into the BMAC editor and send it out after you pub on Substack. So the BMAC supporters get their content right away.
Yeah, bloat is made inevitable by the platform-as-a-service business model.
Fundamentally for a given piece of software a programmer can only do a few things: fix bugs, optimize existing features, or add new features. If there are no more features to add, the software runs about as well as it can, and is stable, it is done.
But a PaaS can't ever be *done* because that would entail either starting a new project or letting go of the majority of programmers. Investors and founders don't like either of these ideas. The health of a platform is determined by how fast it's growing and how large its technical staff is.
Once a platform's growth starts tapering, if it wants to continue scaling it must attract new customers: people who weren't already attracted by its existing features. So in order to grow, it must add new features.
If it's not growing, its valuation plummets, because the valuation of a tech firm is speculative: not based what its assets and revenue are now, but a projection of how quickly it will grow and be worth more in the future. Then the founders have to sell their lambos and the investors are big mad.
Thus all "web 2.0" firms are compelled to grow indefinitely and without constraints. To stop growing is to stagnate, and stagnation is death. Over a long enough timeline, an ideal platform eats the entire internet and does everything that can be done on the internet.
In other words the web's incentive structure is cancer. Anything you think is good now sadly has cancer and will suck later. The only solution is to be ready to jump to the next platform when the tumor gets out of control.
I had not seen it but now that I have it sounds like exactly what I'm talking about. Substack can't just be a newsletter platform. It needs to be patreon and tiktok and twitter and instagram and itunes and youtube etc. etc. too, but better.
Trouble is that Substack was successful because it put so many great writers in one concentrated place. As a reader, I came to substack for one writer, and I stayed because i found others. So many great things to *read*, like the world's best magazine.
Not watch, not listen to, not look at, *read*. Substack did one thing and did it well: being a great place for writers to write and readers to find them.
But it's a web platform, so it has cancer. Soon, if all goes according to plan, it will be a microcosm of the whole undifferentiated internet, with that good writing lost in a sea of "content" to consoom.
Ah well. Someone someday will say, "remember when substack used to be a really cool place to find good writers? I'm going to recreate that" and start the cycle anew. Most likely ignorant of why and how that worked. So it'll get cancer too.
Well, I suppose it will depend on how you use Substack. You can still always focus on the writers you like, and try to ignore the rest of it. As long as people keep writing, the content will keep flowing.
For my part, I prefer writing to video and audio. I experimented with the podcast thing, but I felt awkward talking into a microphone and I'm not sure I'll ever do it again. I am so much more comfortable writing my thoughts than speaking them. Though I understand that some people love audio and video more than the written word. To each his own in that regard, I guess.
It’s more an issue of discoverability. Like, why can’t I find great writers’ blogs on Google? Because Google search has no concept of the notion of “great writer”, or worse has an algorithmic bias about it, and in any case will never take my meaning.
I have to ask for something very specific, and even then Google (or any other search engine) is rarely going to give me what I want. This was less the case 20 years ago when the internet was much smaller.
Equivalently would you rather look for new friends at a party organized by a friend, or in a crowded stadium full of attention-seeking strangers?
Substack, or at least the little corner of it that I read, is/was that party. It is very quickly becoming a cluster of people in that crowded stadium. The more Substack pushes its new misfeatures the harder it will get to find them, and for them to find each other (e.g. the choice to make “explore” instead of “following” the default mode on notes, or the choice to create notes in the first place).
On the internet, as in real life, smallness, exclusivity, and clear purpose win, but incentives preclude these things.
Excellent idea. The BMAC option allows folks to show their appreciation on individual essays. As you state, not everyone can hand out $$$ for full subs to all their favorite writers.
I don’t like the direction of Notes, videos and possibly other add-ons: they make an author’s articles bulk up, and one either has to abandon or unfollow others or “short-change” (in terms of serious attention) everyone. A machine that promises to be both a chop saw and a table saw compromises both functions.
Good points, see Hamish's article here for more on Substack changes: https://read.substack.com/p/its-the-creators-economy-stupid
Interesting. I'll have to look into BMAC. I like the idea of different subscription levels. Some people literally can't afford to send me $5 a month. I already use BMAC just so people can make one-time donations on Substack, and I've set the minimum at $5. Maybe it's time for a change.
It might be useful to you then since you can set those different sub levels. It is worth doing if you are going to send content to your BMAC supporters for sure. It only takes about a minute to copy and paste the article into the BMAC editor and send it out after you pub on Substack. So the BMAC supporters get their content right away.
Yeah, bloat is made inevitable by the platform-as-a-service business model.
Fundamentally for a given piece of software a programmer can only do a few things: fix bugs, optimize existing features, or add new features. If there are no more features to add, the software runs about as well as it can, and is stable, it is done.
But a PaaS can't ever be *done* because that would entail either starting a new project or letting go of the majority of programmers. Investors and founders don't like either of these ideas. The health of a platform is determined by how fast it's growing and how large its technical staff is.
Once a platform's growth starts tapering, if it wants to continue scaling it must attract new customers: people who weren't already attracted by its existing features. So in order to grow, it must add new features.
If it's not growing, its valuation plummets, because the valuation of a tech firm is speculative: not based what its assets and revenue are now, but a projection of how quickly it will grow and be worth more in the future. Then the founders have to sell their lambos and the investors are big mad.
Thus all "web 2.0" firms are compelled to grow indefinitely and without constraints. To stop growing is to stagnate, and stagnation is death. Over a long enough timeline, an ideal platform eats the entire internet and does everything that can be done on the internet.
In other words the web's incentive structure is cancer. Anything you think is good now sadly has cancer and will suck later. The only solution is to be ready to jump to the next platform when the tumor gets out of control.
You raise a lot of good points, Fukitol. Did you see Hamish's post about changes at Substack?
https://read.substack.com/p/its-the-creators-economy-stupid
I had not seen it but now that I have it sounds like exactly what I'm talking about. Substack can't just be a newsletter platform. It needs to be patreon and tiktok and twitter and instagram and itunes and youtube etc. etc. too, but better.
Trouble is that Substack was successful because it put so many great writers in one concentrated place. As a reader, I came to substack for one writer, and I stayed because i found others. So many great things to *read*, like the world's best magazine.
Not watch, not listen to, not look at, *read*. Substack did one thing and did it well: being a great place for writers to write and readers to find them.
But it's a web platform, so it has cancer. Soon, if all goes according to plan, it will be a microcosm of the whole undifferentiated internet, with that good writing lost in a sea of "content" to consoom.
Ah well. Someone someday will say, "remember when substack used to be a really cool place to find good writers? I'm going to recreate that" and start the cycle anew. Most likely ignorant of why and how that worked. So it'll get cancer too.
Well, I suppose it will depend on how you use Substack. You can still always focus on the writers you like, and try to ignore the rest of it. As long as people keep writing, the content will keep flowing.
For my part, I prefer writing to video and audio. I experimented with the podcast thing, but I felt awkward talking into a microphone and I'm not sure I'll ever do it again. I am so much more comfortable writing my thoughts than speaking them. Though I understand that some people love audio and video more than the written word. To each his own in that regard, I guess.
It’s more an issue of discoverability. Like, why can’t I find great writers’ blogs on Google? Because Google search has no concept of the notion of “great writer”, or worse has an algorithmic bias about it, and in any case will never take my meaning.
I have to ask for something very specific, and even then Google (or any other search engine) is rarely going to give me what I want. This was less the case 20 years ago when the internet was much smaller.
Equivalently would you rather look for new friends at a party organized by a friend, or in a crowded stadium full of attention-seeking strangers?
Substack, or at least the little corner of it that I read, is/was that party. It is very quickly becoming a cluster of people in that crowded stadium. The more Substack pushes its new misfeatures the harder it will get to find them, and for them to find each other (e.g. the choice to make “explore” instead of “following” the default mode on notes, or the choice to create notes in the first place).
On the internet, as in real life, smallness, exclusivity, and clear purpose win, but incentives preclude these things.
Excellent idea. The BMAC option allows folks to show their appreciation on individual essays. As you state, not everyone can hand out $$$ for full subs to all their favorite writers.
Yes, BMAC has the buy the author a coffee right at the bottom of the article. Very handy!
I am only going to take donations because I can't reward them for the shadows. But I know not everyone can do that.