Notes is icky. I've used it a couple times but have felt really weird about doing so, because it wasn't at all what I was looking for when signing up for and utilizing Substack. It, the on-the-nose rip-off of Twitter that it is, seems to go against everything Substack set out to do in the first place as well. They package it as A) growing your readership and B) connecting on another level with your subscribers, but I think you're absolutely right: it's just a device to balloon key performance indicators that may impress investors (because clearly they are hurting for money, given their opening of micro investments to writers).
For example, an argument might be able to be made with Notes that, "if people spend more time on the platform (and aren't jumping to Twitter and the like for short-form social media fixes), they're more likely to spend money on the platform." Or, more likely to subscribe to multiple newsletters, increase lifetime value of each account, etc.
Which might be true. But at what cost? And I don't mean a financial cost. At what point does the community Substack outwardly seems so supportive of start to crack? I do worry that that moment has arrived, and that cracks are already visible. Or, if it has not officially arrived, that with Notes its impending arrival has become accelerated.
"Open debate only is useful when everyone debating agrees on the premise. "
This, this, this, this, THIS!
I can't help noticing two things about the "open debate" conversations:
1. It's always being upheld by people with the least skin in the game. I recently saw a post that read: Some of you have never had to fight for your human rights, and it shows. Both-siding/all-siding conversations about human rights is a real tell that you have never had to fight for yours.
2. It's like none of the open debate folks have ever encountered the tolerance paradox, or if they have it's been so surface level they have never taken it to it's conclusion which is that we must never tolerate intolerance of human lives and embodiments. People who refuse to censor hate speech seem to think all speech is created equal and therefore intolerance of the opinions of Nazis is the same as intolerance of a difference of opinion about a movie. These false equivalencies are dangerous and willfully ignorant of systemic oppression.
Anyway - I'm ignoring the hellscape of Notes and sticking with the newsletter blog part of the platform.
Great read, thank you for writing and sharing.
Notes is icky. I've used it a couple times but have felt really weird about doing so, because it wasn't at all what I was looking for when signing up for and utilizing Substack. It, the on-the-nose rip-off of Twitter that it is, seems to go against everything Substack set out to do in the first place as well. They package it as A) growing your readership and B) connecting on another level with your subscribers, but I think you're absolutely right: it's just a device to balloon key performance indicators that may impress investors (because clearly they are hurting for money, given their opening of micro investments to writers).
For example, an argument might be able to be made with Notes that, "if people spend more time on the platform (and aren't jumping to Twitter and the like for short-form social media fixes), they're more likely to spend money on the platform." Or, more likely to subscribe to multiple newsletters, increase lifetime value of each account, etc.
Which might be true. But at what cost? And I don't mean a financial cost. At what point does the community Substack outwardly seems so supportive of start to crack? I do worry that that moment has arrived, and that cracks are already visible. Or, if it has not officially arrived, that with Notes its impending arrival has become accelerated.
"Open debate only is useful when everyone debating agrees on the premise. "
This, this, this, this, THIS!
I can't help noticing two things about the "open debate" conversations:
1. It's always being upheld by people with the least skin in the game. I recently saw a post that read: Some of you have never had to fight for your human rights, and it shows. Both-siding/all-siding conversations about human rights is a real tell that you have never had to fight for yours.
2. It's like none of the open debate folks have ever encountered the tolerance paradox, or if they have it's been so surface level they have never taken it to it's conclusion which is that we must never tolerate intolerance of human lives and embodiments. People who refuse to censor hate speech seem to think all speech is created equal and therefore intolerance of the opinions of Nazis is the same as intolerance of a difference of opinion about a movie. These false equivalencies are dangerous and willfully ignorant of systemic oppression.
Anyway - I'm ignoring the hellscape of Notes and sticking with the newsletter blog part of the platform.