I Am Here Instead of Substack

This “here” is one of my favorite spots in the world: Mt. Wilson, overlooking Los Angeles. Maybe there’s a better visual to head what I’m trying to say in this post, but I can’t think of one right now.

This blog is mine. While it is hosted somewhere, it could be anywhere. The main thing: it isn’t on a platform, and doesn’t have to be.

I publish it on my own, and syndicate it through RSS.

This puts me in a publishing ecosystem that is wide open and full of interop. If you want to know more about how the blogging ecosystem works, read Dave. He’s the blogfather, and pioneering in many useful and fun directions.

Blogging is an ecosystem because it’s open, as are ecosystems in nature. It’s not sitting on somebody’s platform or contained in somebody’s silo.

Substack is a platform. I am told that one can move from Substack to Ghost or wherever. And, if that’s the case, that means it operates in a larger ecosystem, which is blogging. At least that’s how I’ve tended to think about it.

But then today by email came the newsletter version of Substack is a social media app, by Hamish McKenzie. My instant response was a mix of Huh? and Yuck. Because I thought they were a form of blogging. Meanwhile, all of social media as we’ve known it is silo’d and in deep ways very icky. Calling Substack “a social media app” is, at least for me, a huge downscale move.

Blogging is just publishing, plus whatever grows naturally around that. It’s a how, not a where, which makes it a much better what. And that what isn’t “a social media app.”

Anyway, my thinking isn’t complete on this, and may never be. But what Hamish wrote in that newsletter turned me off to ever blogging on Substack. I like my freedom and independence.

By the way, if people want to subscribe to my blog in newsletter form, they can do that. Look on the right (or on mobile, at the bottom) for “Get New Posts By Email,” and subscribe. I have 92 subscribers so far. Just remember that I almost always keep editing what I write. For example, my last two blog posts started as one, and I’m still not happy with either of them.