Thoughts on Substack

I thought about experimenting with Substack. I signed up last year and then didn't have time to muck about with it, let alone write anything to post. The information presented, made it easy for me to think about experimenting elsewhere.

But I wanted to think out some of the points brought up.

One of the popular writers that I had started to follow took it upon herself to write an open letter about the whole thing. I just want to focus on the content and not the origins of it. In it she refers to these internet services as a type of public park and refers to community gardens, but IMHO it missed the point.

Public parks and community gardens in real life, are funded and built by the community. Substack is a business that in this capitalist society only has profit as a motive. Sure there are these notions of community but that is really the advertising for their product.

If I knew hate groups were setting up camp and calling for violence, the public can choose to allow it or we can protest and build laws that don't allow it. Service policies are those rules that help bring that kind of order.

The situation seems fairly clear, the business does not adhere to their policies or they are purposely leaving them vague so that they can continue to optimize their profit. Every user, writer or consumer, is a customer of this business. That is the only real relationship that is viable and so as a user, can you be comfortable funding a business that also funds hate groups?