In this week's net.wars, "Cautionary tales", I consider becoming a child for the purposes of age verification, and Substack becomes a unicorn. Dare we predict enshittification? https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/07/18/cautionary-tales/ #NetWars #OnlineSafetyAct #AgeVerification #Substack #VentureCapital #HumanRights
#Substack is hosting, monetising and promoting Nazi blogs (https://mastodon.social/@taylorlorenz/114939115888742842). Substack's CEO admitted this back in 2023 (https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/09/substack-nazi-content-policies-controversy/).
If you are still using Substack, it is time to leave.
You might want to try #Ghost, a free open source self-hostable alternative to Substack (more info: https://ghost.org/vs/substack/). If you don't self-host, you can sign up at https://ghost.org
Ghost has Fediverse support in testing, Ghost users can sign up at https://activitypub.ghost.org
Wondering if Mastodon is really the right space for me. Even with 10,000 characters, my last post still felt cramped. I have so much to say, and trying to pour that into any fixed container is a challenge. Perhaps Substack suits my long-form tendencies better. Is lengthy content considered poor etiquette here? Genuinely curious what others think.
About that #Substack toot I published earlier: it made me feel uncomfortable to have it up without tagging the journalist (so she couldn't see what we were discussing). I had not tagged her on purpose because she complains of being called out about choosing to stay on Substack.
What is the right way to hold that discussion? I don't know. So I deleted the post.
An excerpt from my (now deleted toot): "Maybe it's just me, but I believe that the tech we use sends an important message about our values and the causes we support. Everything is politics now. Including our tech stack."
So later this week I will publish an article on my blog about *my own* tech stack, how everything is politics now and how I think the platforms we use should reflect our values. It will be linked at the bottom of every blog post I will publish from now on, in a sort of: "disclaimer: here is the tech stack I use" way.
Related: https://news.elenarossini.com/this-is-what-resistance-to-the-digital-coup-looks-like/
Wishing everyone a lovely day 🌞
People, please don't use #SubStack
Please use #Ghost
https://ghost.org
You can let your site be hosted by Ghost or even better..
..self-host!
Setting up a site is super easy and you can even use membership features like I do here: https://stux.me/membership/
For every platform with a shady CEO there is a self-hosted alternative that is waaay better
#FOSS FTW!
Is substack just a thing like mastodon?
I feel like I need to be reading people's substack stuff..
[edit: oops, nevermind.]
