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> Substack gives you a way to push content to your subscribers without an intermediary deciding what they get to read. How do we know they won't start limiting
by billyp-rva 2mo ago
> Substack gives you a way to push content to your subscribers without an intermediary deciding what they get to read.
How do we know they won't start limiting your reach in the future? That's the path basically every other platform has gone down.
- throw1234567891 2mo agoWhen they will, you’ll be free to take action.
- shimman 2mo agoYeah and having a site is a way to mitigate that risk...
- c16 2mo agoGmail has categories. So they already are.
- Bratmon 2mo agoThe entire pitch of Substack is "You can export the email addresses of your current subscribers at any time" So if they stop doing the "email my subscribers whenever I post" step, another service will fill the gap pretty quick.
- rsingel 2mo agoSubstack notes is non exportable; the newsletter now no longer have a link to read it on your site on substack and instead link to the substack app, and subscriptions started in the app pay Substack through Apple and Google and you can't export them. Substack has become a roach motel but they pretend otherwise
- sixtyj 2mo agoThanks for this. I can hear Substack marketing saying that “We don’t have any intention to put you into a vendor-lock.” I had a lot of discussions with companies about their marketing. Why do you upload your events’ photos to FB instead of your site? Why do you have news on LI feed and don’t make it a post on your site as well? Do you think they can hear it? :) Substack is going to become a similar service as FB, LI are… no possibility to export your data easily or not at all.
- AussieWog93 2mo agoNot sure about LinkedIn, but Facebook does let you export all your data as a bit monolithic zip file.
- mastermage 2mo agobecause they have to due to EU Laws every business operating in the EU has to allow this.
- 8by3 2mo agoThey've already started requiring you to be signed in to view content, so I'd argue that have already become, not going to become.
- nicbou 2mo agoEvery single thing substack does reeks of growth hacking. I suspect that it will only get worse. For that reason alone I chose to avoid it for my newsletter.
- skybrian 2mo agoCan't you link to whatever you want in your own blog post?
- Forgeties79 2mo agoUntil they make it more difficult to export lol that’s the real canary in the coal mine if you ask me.
- ericjmorey 2mo agoThe coal mine is already inhospitable
- ImJamal 2mo agoIf Substack stops supporting that feature you would end up losing all of your subscribers when you move to the alternative unless you happen to have an up to date export.
- coldtea 2mo agoWhich is trivial. Even once a month is enough.
- ImJamal 2mo agoHow many writers are even thinking about that though? If they shut it off tomorrow, how many would have a list within the last year?
- coldtea 2mo agoI'm pretty sure all of them. Because they'll never shut it without advance warning, due to the backlash.
- ImJamal 2mo agoOf course, if they were given warning they would export their subscribers. I am talking about if it was cut off without warning. I do not think the majority would have a list within the last year.
- coldtea 2mo agoTwo answers to that: 1) That's on them (those not exporting their lists as backup). 2) Almost zero chance happening without warning anyway.
- inigyou 2mo agoOf course they wouldn't give warning. Backlash is almost always good publicity. And a warning would make their content providers more able to leave.
- carlosjobim 2mo ago> How do we know they won't start limiting your reach in the future? You can never know anything about what anybody will do in the future? You can't. Why do hackers always use this argument against everything?
- autoexec 2mo ago> You can never know anything about what anybody will do in the future? You absolutely can know something about what someone will do in the future. You gain those insights by looking at their past and present behavior and the behavior of others in similar circumstances. Hackers tend to be pretty good at pattern recognition and can often see where things are heading. Enshittification is a pretty smart bet.
- carlosjobim 2mo agoSo your ex girlfriend cheated on you and now you reject all contact with women because you know that "sooner or later" she's going to cheat on you? In my ears it sounds the same when hackers say you can never buy anything or use any service, because "sooner or later" it will go to crap. It's probably easy being a cynic, because you can always wait for decades (as another commenter argued) until you are right. In the meanwhile you have missed out on life - for no personal benefit at all.
- skybrian 2mo agoYou can do whatever research you like, but when you attempt to apply it to predicting the future, you're still speculating. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
- bryanrasmussen 2mo agoHackers always use this argument against everything because you can in fact know some things about what one person, yourself, will do in the future. Thus they argue that you should not trust your things to other people but do it yourself, because, barring major illness, you can reasonably assume that you will try to do what is best for yourself in the future.
- dlcarrier 2mo agoThere's enough demand for the feature that if they stop supporting it, they won't be able to compete against anyone offering the feature.
- jimbokun 2mo agoThat’s when you leave.
- inigyou 2mo agoDo they do it right now? How far into the future can you plan for? In the long run we all die.
- ShinyLeftPad 2mo agoYour host can kick you and DNS can block you.