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> ... your platform will be used for everything from accounting to warfare logistics. How are you going to stop that without planning, researching and enforcing

> ... your platform will be used for everything from accounting to warfare logistics. How are you going to stop that without planning, researching and enforcing rules? Is this not answered exactly by what you quoted? > Readers choose for themselves which writers to invite into their inboxes and their minds. No one is forced to read anything they don't choose to.

mc32 6y ago
Yeah, but you know, the mob. Twitter and just about any other platform is similar in that what you see is either indirectly or directly driven by you and your choices, yet people will go out of their way to find legal speech offensive. So I guess it depends on how much they are willing to stick to their principles. I can only hope they do and don't suffer for people who seek out offense.
- BelenusMordred 6y ago
  To me that seems like the difference I guess, the mob will always be there but it is individual writers rather than the chaotic mess of people and algo-amplified-words you are bombarded with on other platforms. For example if you follow infosec twitter it's quite common to end up with a large amount of American political content whether you want it or not. Things like that don't really seem like a problem for substack where most have a single focus. Not to say that a writer can't go rouge, turning from pacifist to war-monger overnight and angering a bunch of readers, but the fallout from that seems quite limited, it's far less the platform in such a case. I've watched a few of my favourite journalists jump ship from big news companies with varying success, it's certainly not easy going full independent with your own site, even if you have a few decades of loyal readers behind you. Substack always comes across as a nice middle ground of independence with discoverability for professional writers along with less friction for readers.

mc32 6y ago

Yeah, but you know, the mob. Twitter and just about any other platform is similar in that what you see is either indirectly or directly driven by you and your choices, yet people will go out of their way to find legal speech offensive. So I guess it depends on how much they are willing to stick to their principles. I can only hope they do and don't suffer for people who seek out offense.

BelenusMordred 6y ago
To me that seems like the difference I guess, the mob will always be there but it is individual writers rather than the chaotic mess of people and algo-amplified-words you are bombarded with on other platforms. For example if you follow infosec twitter it's quite common to end up with a large amount of American political content whether you want it or not. Things like that don't really seem like a problem for substack where most have a single focus. Not to say that a writer can't go rouge, turning from pacifist to war-monger overnight and angering a bunch of readers, but the fallout from that seems quite limited, it's far less the platform in such a case. I've watched a few of my favourite journalists jump ship from big news companies with varying success, it's certainly not easy going full independent with your own site, even if you have a few decades of loyal readers behind you. Substack always comes across as a nice middle ground of independence with discoverability for professional writers along with less friction for readers.