Message in a bottle

Commenting via e-mail an article published on Substack is like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it into the ocean.

In fact, I haven’t used neither the website nor the smartphone app as the developers and operators of the service would like us to.

The attention and performance economy demands a constant presence on the website or, better, on the app, with who knows how many calls to all kinds of servers. But never mind, we know how the world works, and we try to defend ourselves.

Substack is a social network in disguise, posing as a newsletter management service. Perhaps the creators originally intended to provide a means for users to monetise their writing, but then the social aspect took over.

Or maybe it's just a way to lure people like me, who can't stand social networks anymore, into a new one with timelines jumping from one thing to another. A place where thoughts and words are scattered like shards of poor quality glass that can cause deep cuts if you walk on them barefoot.

I wonder if my message reached its destination. It wasn't some particularly witty argument, just a mundane stream of thought triggered by what I’d read shortly before.

Perhaps it will be found lost in the depths of a spam folder. Who knows?