I love the variety of writers on here and the fact that its very easy to find like minds. Yes, I too would be horrified to find that Substack began using ads. In my opinion, the introdction of ads is when platforms become slaves to their advertisers and start censoring and whatnot. No censorship. Ever. Please
As a very new Substacker, my take is the platform is trying to be all things to all people and confusion is the result. Are there any users who are here to read good stuff, or are we all, like babybirds with mouths wide open, simply here to sell? There's so much noise sometimes that I can't hear anything in particular.
Among the people I read and follow and see in my comments, I see a third motivation (besides being here to read good stuff or to sell). I’ve met many people who are here to *write* good stuff (to find out their own capacity) and interact as both reader and writer to stretch our human communities. The Substack business model allows writers to come here and explore ideas without “monetizing” beyond a few encouraging donations. This community side of Substack is, I think, genuine and delightful. I like to browse home pages to get a sense of a writer’s purpose and ethos. Yes, there is selling, but also something more essential. It’s my favorite aspect of the platform. Welcome. :-)
The payment system issue is just as much a protection for Substack as it for its users. Many are unaware of the issue, or confuse it with an attempt to clamp down on wingnut conspiracy theorists. But we are living in an age of alarming new words- words which wouldn't be at all out of place in George Orwell's 1984.
Words like malinformation- information which is true, but nonetheless inconvenient to the regime or its policy agenda. World-leading scientists who happened to dissent from the ideologically handpicked views of other scientists, silenced, smeared and shadow-banned. Governments throughout the West are on the move. They don't like the fact that they've lost the ability to Manufacture Consent with large segments of their own populations. They are taking steps to curtail freedom of expression and freedom to dissent everywhere- from Germany to Ireland, Canada to the UK. They will point to the rare odious anecdotes, or more likely smear more considered and intelligent voices as such, for the occasionally ill-chosen phrase taken out of context- but their intent is clear, they want to reinstate the corporate media gatekeeping which puts citizens back to sleep. Right populism can produce some pretty ugly views in the tiny portion at the extremes, just as Left populism can push the young to embrace ideas which wouldn't feel at all out of place in the Soviet Union during the era of political correctness, before perestroika and glasnost, but censoring views only allows the likes of Brexit and Trump to come into being- because silencing and excommunicating resentments from polite conversation doesn't cause the resentment to disappear or dissipate, instead it stores up and builds it into a force of nature.
We have to concede that the West wouldn't be in the mess it is today, if our political and institutional establishments had listened to the concerns of ordinary decent citizens and sought out policies which gave good jobs to blue collar kids displaced by the neoliberal globalist agenda, regardless of race, who never had a hope in hell of improving their prospects through academic education. Enacting radical libertarian land reforms and building out short-range rail might have been a good start. Summoning the spirit of the Liberty Ships to create a generation of cheap starter homes for American kids in order to stop the American Dream turning into a Gilded Age 2.0 could have done a lot to stop the anger and resentment felt just as keenly on the populist Left as the populist Right.
If only they had listened or understood that the Blank Slatist mentality of education for all was only ever going to help a small portion of the population to ascend upwards- quite apart from the fact that it was sheer arrogance to believe that the West could sell high value services, goods and cultural products to India and China without them wanting to build their own high value networks more in keeping with their own cultural mores and finance industry driven societal goals. They should have listened and not dismissed. Protecting the payments systems of the likes of Substack is vital.
Thankfully, the Left has finally woken up to the danger, not that's their views which are being misrepresented, rare anecdotes deliberately misrepresented as the norm in a movement of dissent. Agree. Disagree. Protecting their ability to dissent protects our own. The way things used to work if one disagreed was to politely tell them they were wrong and then explain the how and why.
Oh, and they debanked Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek Finance Minister and socialist- stole his money with no right to appeal or even an explanation- for the unpardonable sin of supporting Julian Assange. The only thing which might just save us is that the jackbooted authoritarians are beginning to look increasingly and laughably ridiculous.
You really hit the nail on the head with this. So much has gone wrong, and you really articulate here the various ways that the regime has failed to meet the needs of the majority of its people. Now people are starting to realize, and censorship is the last-ditch effort to avoid the fallout.
I understand how this relates to payment systems, but how does this protect Substack?
As a newcomer, I've been both floored by how open things are and how open the people are and finding myself getting over the reflexive emotional tone of other sites. Once you get your pitchfork up, it's hard to put it down, but it seems like people actually care here about . . . well, anything. And I mean that in a good way.
Two things about Substack that I love...1) People genuinely exchange ideas for the most part. I've actually seen people say 'sorry' to others when they got too aggressive...where else have you seen that? 2) You can have Bari Weiss level subscribers or 50 subscribers and you still get to write. And it's really great. And you get to read everyday people's thoughts and ideas. And they're so much better than 'the professionals'. A huge thanks to Substack.
I love the variety of writers on here and the fact that its very easy to find like minds. Yes, I too would be horrified to find that Substack began using ads. In my opinion, the introdction of ads is when platforms become slaves to their advertisers and start censoring and whatnot. No censorship. Ever. Please
As a very new Substacker, my take is the platform is trying to be all things to all people and confusion is the result. Are there any users who are here to read good stuff, or are we all, like babybirds with mouths wide open, simply here to sell? There's so much noise sometimes that I can't hear anything in particular.
Among the people I read and follow and see in my comments, I see a third motivation (besides being here to read good stuff or to sell). I’ve met many people who are here to *write* good stuff (to find out their own capacity) and interact as both reader and writer to stretch our human communities. The Substack business model allows writers to come here and explore ideas without “monetizing” beyond a few encouraging donations. This community side of Substack is, I think, genuine and delightful. I like to browse home pages to get a sense of a writer’s purpose and ethos. Yes, there is selling, but also something more essential. It’s my favorite aspect of the platform. Welcome. :-)
The payment system issue is just as much a protection for Substack as it for its users. Many are unaware of the issue, or confuse it with an attempt to clamp down on wingnut conspiracy theorists. But we are living in an age of alarming new words- words which wouldn't be at all out of place in George Orwell's 1984.
Words like malinformation- information which is true, but nonetheless inconvenient to the regime or its policy agenda. World-leading scientists who happened to dissent from the ideologically handpicked views of other scientists, silenced, smeared and shadow-banned. Governments throughout the West are on the move. They don't like the fact that they've lost the ability to Manufacture Consent with large segments of their own populations. They are taking steps to curtail freedom of expression and freedom to dissent everywhere- from Germany to Ireland, Canada to the UK. They will point to the rare odious anecdotes, or more likely smear more considered and intelligent voices as such, for the occasionally ill-chosen phrase taken out of context- but their intent is clear, they want to reinstate the corporate media gatekeeping which puts citizens back to sleep. Right populism can produce some pretty ugly views in the tiny portion at the extremes, just as Left populism can push the young to embrace ideas which wouldn't feel at all out of place in the Soviet Union during the era of political correctness, before perestroika and glasnost, but censoring views only allows the likes of Brexit and Trump to come into being- because silencing and excommunicating resentments from polite conversation doesn't cause the resentment to disappear or dissipate, instead it stores up and builds it into a force of nature.
We have to concede that the West wouldn't be in the mess it is today, if our political and institutional establishments had listened to the concerns of ordinary decent citizens and sought out policies which gave good jobs to blue collar kids displaced by the neoliberal globalist agenda, regardless of race, who never had a hope in hell of improving their prospects through academic education. Enacting radical libertarian land reforms and building out short-range rail might have been a good start. Summoning the spirit of the Liberty Ships to create a generation of cheap starter homes for American kids in order to stop the American Dream turning into a Gilded Age 2.0 could have done a lot to stop the anger and resentment felt just as keenly on the populist Left as the populist Right.
If only they had listened or understood that the Blank Slatist mentality of education for all was only ever going to help a small portion of the population to ascend upwards- quite apart from the fact that it was sheer arrogance to believe that the West could sell high value services, goods and cultural products to India and China without them wanting to build their own high value networks more in keeping with their own cultural mores and finance industry driven societal goals. They should have listened and not dismissed. Protecting the payments systems of the likes of Substack is vital.
Thankfully, the Left has finally woken up to the danger, not that's their views which are being misrepresented, rare anecdotes deliberately misrepresented as the norm in a movement of dissent. Agree. Disagree. Protecting their ability to dissent protects our own. The way things used to work if one disagreed was to politely tell them they were wrong and then explain the how and why.
Oh, and they debanked Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek Finance Minister and socialist- stole his money with no right to appeal or even an explanation- for the unpardonable sin of supporting Julian Assange. The only thing which might just save us is that the jackbooted authoritarians are beginning to look increasingly and laughably ridiculous.
You really hit the nail on the head with this. So much has gone wrong, and you really articulate here the various ways that the regime has failed to meet the needs of the majority of its people. Now people are starting to realize, and censorship is the last-ditch effort to avoid the fallout.
I understand how this relates to payment systems, but how does this protect Substack?
Thanks Melissa for keeping an eye on how Substack is working. I'm having so much fun on this platform and finally sharing my writing.
As a newcomer, I've been both floored by how open things are and how open the people are and finding myself getting over the reflexive emotional tone of other sites. Once you get your pitchfork up, it's hard to put it down, but it seems like people actually care here about . . . well, anything. And I mean that in a good way.
Two things about Substack that I love...1) People genuinely exchange ideas for the most part. I've actually seen people say 'sorry' to others when they got too aggressive...where else have you seen that? 2) You can have Bari Weiss level subscribers or 50 subscribers and you still get to write. And it's really great. And you get to read everyday people's thoughts and ideas. And they're so much better than 'the professionals'. A huge thanks to Substack.
Thanks for reading! I agree. I think as long as the leadership doesn’t change, Substack should be alright.