Escape Substack?
Substack, the platform I use for the New Escapologist newsletter, is crawling with Nazis. Urgh! Readers have emailed to say they’ve unsubscribed from the newsletter for this reason. Thanks a lot, Nazis.
So should I stay or should I go? Obviously I should go. Leaving is something I’m great at! But I can’t leave without first finding an alternative, because doing so would all but end New Escapologist. An escape plan is in order.
Here’s Friend Carrie on the nature of this particular trap:
The problem for many people who publish on Substack is a problem we’ve previously seen on other platforms, including Twitter. It’s enabled people to establish an audience and in some cases a career, and that means leaving could cause financial harm to people who abandon the platform. Even if other platforms were morally pure, and very few of them are, the people demanding moral purity from their newsletter creators are rarely the people who will be financially harmed by it.
In addition, many of the people being urged to quit are marginalised people – the very people who can least afford the financial hit.
As it happens, I don’t make money from Substack. Not directly. My newsletter is free, so I’m not in particularly deep. My using the platform does not fund Nazis or (so far as I can tell) help them in any way.
But the newsletter allows me to sell the magazine (and my books via my personal list), so my bind is very similar to someone who does profit directly from Substack.
I’m sharing a platform with Nazis. Which is horrible. And embarrassing. But we all share platforms with Nazis all the time: on almost any social media platform and even the lovely Old Web is full of Nazis because there’s no moderation out there at all (though really every website is a different independent platform, so there’s always a nice little moat to separate us from the jackboot-wearing Eugenicists).
So I think “why should I go?” Obviously, I shouldn’t have to go, but equally obviously I do have to go. Yet I’m not sure there is anywhere to go. It’s a classic escape problem.
Carrie quotes another blogger (from Substack!) who airs this very frustration:
It is exhausting just trying to exist with any level of moral consistency online nowadays. And the people who keep being handed the keys to several kingdoms don’t ever bother to worry about it. They just let us tear ourselves apart trying to do the right thing while they feast. It’s all a game to them. It’s not remotely a game to us. So there’s no equivalence.
It is exhausting.
As a trans woman, Carrie is generous to give a pass to people who might not have the financial liberty to leave Naziville. I pretty much do have the financial liberty but only if I can find an adequate alternative way to send my newsletter.
So where shall I go, folks? While Substack is free, Ghost and Buttondown are expensive. Ghost in particular would cost me $199 per month, charged yearly, which is completely prohibitive. Other platforms I’ve seen are too rubbish or unreliable (or are crypto- or AI-oriented, meaning the Nazis are probably already there).
I could go back to Mailchimp, which I used for New Escapologist before Substack, but it really sucks. Its creative interface is awful and half the emails don’t make it through spam filters. One of the nice things about moving to Substack last year was reconnecting with people who thought I’d died. “You’re back!” they all said.
I don’t particularly want to stay on Substack. I have as much to lose from the rise of Fascism as anyone.
So it’s frustrating. I’d leave. I will leave, by jove! But I have no idea where to go. Answers in the comments please. Help Mr. Escape escape.
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About Robert Wringham
Robert Wringham is the editor of New Escapologist. He also writes books and articles. Read more at wringham.co.uk
Looks like the backlash has been enough so that Substack is now doing something about the most egregious cases: https://www.platformer.news/substack-says-it-will-remove-nazi/
Still, a wordpress site with a newsletter mailer may be your best bet.
Ours is indeed a WordPress site so that’s appealing. But what does that involve? Getting a plugin? And do you know it to be effective? Like, do emails actually get through to everyone rather than getting spammed?
No answers here. I have to say, although I obviously don’t disagree with the premise that Nazis are bad, I’m surprised at how this is extending to a platform like Substack. Maybe I’m also attached to the old web, but I believe that despite its best efforts, Substack is WordPress for Newsletters. I see it as the cheapest infrastructure, the easiest service on the market right now. I’m confident Nazis are on WordPress, as well, especially the free version.
I’m not so sure how to balance the escape with affordability and access. Leaving Substack feels like uninstalling WordPress and manually updating the HTML on a website every time you write a new article!
No, WordPress isn’t a platform. It’s an open-source CMS installed on your own server. It doesn’t slurp up people’s money or data for nefarious ends like platforms do. If you use WordPress, you’re not sharing a platform with anyone. Substack is a platform, alas. (I’m not talking about the free version wordpress.com here, which is very different, but even that is owned by a firm called Automattic whom I see as relatively benign – though I stand to be corrected).
Could you post your newsletter here once a month, instead of sending it via email?
The newsletter is just a digest of the month’s blog posts. The point of the newsletter is to reach people’s inboxes. Since the fall of RSS and the rise of social media most people forget to read blogs unprompted.
I asked my brother, knowledgeable about tech, who suggests https://sendgrid.com as an alternative to managing a mailing list. We weren’t sure if it met your needs creatively/pricing wise.
Escaping Nazis is a noble mission, but not an easy one. Good luck!
Thank you very much for asking him. Kind of you. This one looks to cost 19.95 per month, which is much better than Ghost. It’s still a shame that there’s a cost compared to Substack, which is free. (I don’t blame them for charging – it’s just a shame to have to be financially down on the arrangement just because of the Nazis). I’ll keep this one in mind, it good be a good one.
Ghost can replace WordPress and Substack. I’ve used Ghost since their first release when it was closer to a WordPress replacement than a Substack replacement. They switched to cover both several releases ago.
You might want to look closer at their pricing. Based on your Substack page, you’d likely be closer to $25/month unless Substack is under-reporting your subscribers. You can always self-host Ghost too, which might save some money. I’m not sure what you pay for this site, but Ghost should be able to do what WordPress is doing for you here. Not sure how hard it is to transfer. I did all that by hand when I left WordPress years ago.
Noooo, don’t make me leave WordPress! Seriously, that would be a crazy overreaction. I’ve used WordPress for 17 years, I really like it and I have no intention of leaving it.