Every sixth video on my TikTok feed these days is captioned “articles I read instead of doom scrolling”, and it’s a slideshow of Substack screenshots. And as a wannabe writer who is a big fan of collecting tools instead of actual writing, I started researching about this favourite platform of aesthetic TikTokers.
It has perks. A medium-like platform with better discoverability. You can even post small snippets (like tweets) with an image, quote, your thoughts, and lure people in to engage. And most importantly, everyone is equal. All creators have yourthing.substack.com domain, a few fonts to choose from, and a similar looking layout.1 No special treatment just because you can pay money.2 And it turns out even Grant Sanderson from 3blue1brown uses Substack these days for blogging and the last blog piece he wrote on his website was 3 years ago.
Substack promises so much: easy discoverability, community and growth, active users who actually love reading and discovering creators, free email newsletters, monetization, comment section, CMS, no code, free hosting, analytics, etc. You can just focus on your writing. It will take care of everything else for you.
And yet with all these perks and features, I don’t feel tempted by Substack. I understand it’s not for me. I don’t want to “just write” and “worry about nothing.” I want to weave my own nest, even if I am an amateur. I want the power to customize each pixel to my will. I want my own domain with no middleman between two dots. I crave the experience of creating something on my own terms, a place that feels personal, maybe even a little unique. Flawed and imperfect, yes, but totally mine. And since I know basic coding and how to set up a website, what good of a skill would that be if I just opt to drag and drop and write on boxes on someone else’s platform where all users look the same?
Above all, Substack is not an utopia either, as shown by TikTok videos. Tens of thousands of people compete for an audience. Some (many) have been there for years with maybe a handful of subscribers. Do you think they don’t try hard? Just go ahead and look over at r/substack on reddit. Growing as a writer is hard. Even with your substack, it is recommended to promote yourself on platforms like TikTok and Pinterest. And since Substack has twitter-like feed these days, how long until it will be filled with smart one liners and images, the refugees of r/iam14andthisisdeep. And how long till it’s filled with AI generated slop and no real deep content from independent creators that was once promised?
If you have your own website, you own everything. I know Substack frankly admits that you will own your content, mailing lists, etc, but still they can just delete your posts, terminate your account if they want. I know this sounds like I am just making it up to support my view, but you never know. Once you publish something (anything) on the internet, the concept of owning fades, but at least with your own site, you hold the upper hand most of the time. Uncensored. You don’t have to play with any terms or policy. No one can lock you out. Platforms come and go, sometimes they rise, sometimes they fall, but the internet is forever.
And if you plan on making money with your blog, then Substack is very limited. But I think creators on Substack don’t want to make money by running ads or affiliated products, because most of the articles are very personal and not money-making-type. But Substack doesn't even let this option exist. You are limited with your paid subscribers, or you need to set up Patreon or coffee-thingy.
I think Substack is a great platform though, and if you are wondering about giving it a try, please go ahead. It’s really great. People smarter and knowledgeable than me have Substack and they are happy. I even read their posts from time to time. And if you are reading this, you can see this website has no comment section. There is no community here. And yet I have no plan to add a comment section, because that means setting up and hosting a database and server. It’s complicated. It’s expensive. Substack gives this feature, with so many other essential ones, for free.
But I also think Substack is for people who are in a hurry, people who want to just write and don’t have the knowledge or aren’t willing to engineer things. People who are okay and not sceptical every time they breathe, people who want to do the job and get it done simply and cleanly. People who want to just focus on writing and expressing, rather than obsessing over what side they are on. People who are okay with not being right all the time and not overanalyzing everything. People who believe in letting the right agent or platform do its job and not be so negative and overcomplicate things if they can be done with ease. I, simply, am not like that.
