8 ms·

I'm not a huge fan of Substack, but this seems like the most cynical interpretation of what Substack is. And the whole point is just to police the words people

I'm not a huge fan of Substack, but this seems like the most cynical interpretation of what Substack is. And the whole point is just to police the words people use to refer to their blog?

not2b 2y ago
He's not "policing", rather giving good advice. Substack is only one provider for newsletter producers. Calling your newsletter "a Substack" is akin to calling your blog "a Wordpress", and a number of successful writers there have transitioned to the competition and done better. If you call what you have a Substack and then you move it, what do you have, and will people think you disappeared when you just are self-hosting or moving to Ghost, Buttondown, Beehiiv or someone else?
- reaperducer 2y ago
  Years and years ago there were a lot of people on HN who were very vocal about the word "podcast," and how every time it was uttered it gave Apple a free ad for its music player to the exclusion of other options. I guess we got over it.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    We have a similar problem now where people are sure the word "podcast" refers to some kind of specialized thing that has to be accessed with dedicated software, as opposed to referring to an audio file that you download from the internet. The existence of the special term has caused a good amount of harm by enabling this confusion.
    - not2b 2y ago
      The most important part of "podcast" is that phrase you hear so often, "wherever you get your podcasts". It's an open standard, you can pick your app, they can be hosted anywhere. If an audio program is exclusively available on, say, Spotify, it isn't a podcast.
    - rrdharan 2y ago
      I disagree, most podcast episodes and ads mention a few popular options plus “or wherever you get your podcasts” and the proprietary gated stuff hasn’t been doing that well!

8 ms·

I'm not a huge fan of Substack, but this seems like the most cynical interpretation of what Substack is. And the whole point is just to police the words people

by chipgap98 2y ago

I'm not a huge fan of Substack, but this seems like the most cynical interpretation of what Substack is. And the whole point is just to police the words people use to refer to their blog?

not2b 2y ago
He's not "policing", rather giving good advice. Substack is only one provider for newsletter producers. Calling your newsletter "a Substack" is akin to calling your blog "a Wordpress", and a number of successful writers there have transitioned to the competition and done better. If you call what you have a Substack and then you move it, what do you have, and will people think you disappeared when you just are self-hosting or moving to Ghost, Buttondown, Beehiiv or someone else?
- reaperducer 2y ago
  Years and years ago there were a lot of people on HN who were very vocal about the word "podcast," and how every time it was uttered it gave Apple a free ad for its music player to the exclusion of other options. I guess we got over it.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    We have a similar problem now where people are sure the word "podcast" refers to some kind of specialized thing that has to be accessed with dedicated software, as opposed to referring to an audio file that you download from the internet. The existence of the special term has caused a good amount of harm by enabling this confusion.
    - not2b 2y ago
      The most important part of "podcast" is that phrase you hear so often, "wherever you get your podcasts". It's an open standard, you can pick your app, they can be hosted anywhere. If an audio program is exclusively available on, say, Spotify, it isn't a podcast.
    - rrdharan 2y ago
      I disagree, most podcast episodes and ads mention a few popular options plus “or wherever you get your podcasts” and the proprietary gated stuff hasn’t been doing that well!