Substack Against the Machine?

in which I explore the new Notes feature on Substack and its implications for small creators in the internet economy

Over the weekend, there was a bit of friction surrounding Substack’s release of their new Notes feature. In their announcement, the creators of Substack say that, “We started Substack back in 2017 because we wanted the internet to be better for writers and readers. […] We thought there could be something better if writers and readers were given more control and treated as a higher priority than advertisers, and if culture makers could find financial dignity without needing to sublimate themselves to attention games and corporate marketing budgets.”

If you’ve been following along with my social media journey recently, you’ll recognize these as some of the precise reasons why I decided to leave Instagram. Over the past few years, sites like Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter have shifted their focus away from the independent creators who use their tools (whom they claimed to champion!) to corporate interests, bigtime advertisers, and political correctness, crushing these independent artists beneath their algorithmic boot.

Being a writer, I already found Instagram in particular to be a challenging platform to use, as it was never particularly friendly to long-form written content, but once it all became commercials, I was out.

But will Notes really be any different, you ask? Fair question, and I don’t know. I hope it will be. The Substack creators say that, “[…] we set about building a system that fosters deep connections and quality over shallow engagement and dopamine hacks. We turned away from advertising and the attention economy and towards subscriptions and direct relationships.”

This does give one reason for hope.

However, being what is essentially an alt-Twitter (another in the long line of many alt-Twitters, such as GETTR, Truth Social, Gab, Minds, etc.), Notes has ruffled some feathers on the bird app. Reportedly, just before Easter, Elon Musk’s Twitter blocked engagement with tweets containing links to Substack articles, slapping them with warning labels proclaiming them “unsafe.” Since then—at least from my own experience—this has been reversed. However, this behavior is still concerning for independent creators operating in an increasingly hostile environment. Here is a link to another article examining the situation in more depth.

It is beginning to appear that nowhere is safe for the little guy. Nowhere, perhaps, aside from Substack.

“In notes, writers will be able to post short-form content and share ideas with each other and their readers. Like our Recommendations feature, Notes is designed to drive discovery across Substack. But while Recommendations lets writers promote publications, Notes will give them the ability to recommend almost anything—including posts, quotes, comments, images, and links. Our goal is to foster conversations that inspire, enlighten, and entertain, while giving writers a powerful growth channel as these interactions find new audiences. […] While Notes may look like familiar social media feeds, the key difference is in what you don’t see. The Substack network runs on paid subscriptions, not ads.” (From the Substack team’s announcement post)

From this, it would appear that the creators of Substack truly understand and aim to bring relief to the plight of the small, individual creator. Then again, once upon a time, places like Instagram and YouTube preached the same message.

I, for one, hope (possibly naively) that Substack will continue to operate with this kind of integrity, empowering the creators who use their platform, as well as protecting their right to free speech (which is fundamentally necessary to any honest creative endeavor). If they can manage this, in the face of brutal criticism and political pressure, I believe this platform will pave the way to a post-machine world. Which is, of course, what those who operate that machine fear most.