Comment on Substack wants to do more than just newsletters
alyaza@beehaw.org 5 weeks ago
we clearly took a wrong turn somewhere because “less a journalism platform and more a payment system for creators” is nauseating on like 5 different levels
Not really, unless there’s a way to secure public funding for them, this seems like a reasonable Middle road.
Like a Patreon, which will having its own unique set of problems, also enables a paid content distribution system for independent creators unlike anything else available.
So, unlike inserting invasive advertising, and lacking public funds, I see know how else they’re supposed to maintain infrastructure and development costs.
i mean my first layer of contention is that Substack is even a “journalism platform” for “independent creators” and not just a gentrified blogging platform like Medium, with a corresponding lack of vision in who it exists for and what it should be good at doing.
like, there are some actual journalists on there, yeah, but a lot of them are literally paid to use the platform/overlook the fact that it won’t do basic moderation like “banning fascists” (because the owners believe in the same technolibertarian nonsense as every other major platform). they wouldn’t be there at all without monetary incentives, which induce network effect and lock people into the infrastructure. and the scope creep is already real with Substack’s features, just like with whatever the hell Medium was doing 5-6 years ago. it’s trying to be an Everything App―even though nobody asked for that―and still the only things it does well are things that are basic functionality it can lift from elsewhere.
datavoid@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
So… a Patreon for neo-nazis?