Don't Call It "My Substack".

Email has been around for years. But if Substack wants you to call your creative work by its brand name, it's because it controls your audience and your distribution, and because it also wants to take ownership of your content and your voice. You might think you don't care about that today, but you will once you see what they want to do with it.

I know you think you're in control of your subscribers on Substack. But understand this: every new feature Substack ships, from its social sharing to its mobile apps, is proprietary and locks you into its network. They won't let your writing live on your own website or domain under your control unless you pay them for the privilege. And it would be a shame if something happened to those subscription dollars you're relying on, wouldn't it? Even if you tell yourself "but my readership is growing!", be aware that most new subscribers come from other writers recommending you to their readers. Somehow... Substack wants to take the credit for those writers' choice? Even though it was your writing that inspired it? This isn't some magical network effect created by Substack! It's just the internet working the way it's supposed to.

Links are powerful — that's why Instagram, Twitter and Threads penalise and limit them, and why Substack tries to take credit for them. And it's why "wherever you get your podcasts" is such a radical concept — like email, it's a medium that the tech moguls don't own, and can't own. People can read your writing "wherever they get their email".

We limit our own imagination when we make our creations subservient to names owned by fascist moguls. Imagine a book author telling people to "read my Amazon". A great director trying to promote their film by saying "click on my YouTube". That's how thoroughly they've scrubbed your brain when you refer to your own work and your own voice in the context of their walled garden. There is no "my Substack", there is only your writing.

Substack is, for the record, a political project undertaken by extremists in order to normalise a radical, hateful agenda by co-opting the work of well-meaning creators in the service of cross-promoting attacks on vulnerable people. You don't have to take my word for it; the CEO of Substack explicitly stated that he wouldn't ban someone who was explicitly spreading hate, and when confronted with the rampant white supremacist propaganda he profits from on his site, he removed... four of the Nazis. Four.

@decoderpod Our host Nilay asked Substack CEO Chris Best the tough questions about whether racist speech should be allowed in their new consumer product, Substack Notes. #techtok #technews #substack #ceo ♬ original sound - Decoder with Nilay Patel

There are countless others now, and they want to use your newsletter to cross-promote that content and legitimise it. No one can ban the site for its hateful content if your nice little newsletter is sitting there too, and your thoughts for your subscribers are all the cover they need.

The counter-argument people usually make is convenience (which I had more sympathy for before excellent options like Ghost, Beehiiv, Medium and even WordPress upped their game) and the theoretical network-effect benefits that come from being on Substack. Which is largely a myth (most referrals come from other writers, not the platform) and means you have to be open to the platform using your writing to introduce people to the most insidious anti-trans and white supremacist rhetoric on the internet.

That's why they encouraged you to call it "my Substack". When Marc Andreessen and his friends funded Clubhouse (remember that nonsense?) so they could take part in audio chats whose explicit aim was to destroy responsible media, they also took the time to fund Substack specifically so they could undermine the major newspapers they believed would criticise their interests. And it worked, obviously.

Here's how to export your subscribers. Here are some excellent Substack alternatives. Before you start either of those processes, there's one change you can make today: you can talk about your work as your work. It's your newsletter, your email or your blog. Or simply your writing. But it's certainly not "your Substack".

Source: https://www.anildash.com/2024/11/19/dont-call-it-a-substack/