{"id":9178,"date":"2023-04-14T10:11:54","date_gmt":"2023-04-14T08:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/?p=9178"},"modified":"2023-04-14T10:12:20","modified_gmt":"2023-04-14T08:12:20","slug":"a-short-lived-interest-in-substack-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/a-short-lived-interest-in-substack-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"A Short Lived Interest in Substack Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

When I heard about Substack Notes I felt an interest in the project. I liked the idea of a site where we could write long form posts on one side, and short form posts on the other. I liked the idea of having conversations with people and creating new connections. That\u2019s why I use social media and that\u2019s what makes social media social, rather than a news website or some other form of website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flaw emerged in two manners. The first is when content creators showed their huge growth in subscribers. It went from being a social network to an influencer network. It went from conversations on a human scale to lecture hall, or even stadium monologues. It went from being about individuals listening to each other, to influencers talking at people, but no longer being able to hear and interact. It went to being a broadcast platform. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second flaw is the FOMO that is caused by giving people with hundreds of paying subscribers a verified tick. It creates a two class social network. You have normal people, using it as a social network, and the others monologuing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People like to say \u201cYou can use the social network as you like\u201d but this isn\u2019t true. This isn\u2019t possible. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are aol about the influencers, rather than about individuals. It becomes impossible to find organic conversations because you\u2019re always thrown into a big crowd rather than a small gathering. The result is trolling, but also solitude and loneliness. Social media should neutralise loneliness, not exacerbate it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why I like WordPress.com, and wordpress.org. With both aspects of the same project you have a community, without it being a competition. Social networks should be about conviviality, not a faceless mass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube force us to see what the mass audience people are doing, at the cost of making ordinary people and creators invisible. It encourages introverts to withdraw, rather than participate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years ago I realised that if you\u2019re an introvert, and you go out to socialise, you\u2019re just there to flatter the ego of the extrovert that everyone is listening to. If you\u2019re an introvert and quiet, or not as well spoken as others you are invisible. You will gain as much, by staying home, as going out. Social media has become the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2007 I asked \u201cBut what about the ROI of Twitter and Facebook users?\u201d In 2023 not only has this question not been heard, but the mistake is spreading. I\u2019d rather work on projects than waste time on networks where I am invisible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By showing graphs of how readership exploded for some users on Substack, and by adding \u201cthis person has hundreds of paying subscribers Substack created a class system on their social network that I left Twitter to avoid. If Mastodon, Substack and other alternatives all have the same flaws as Twitter, then why do we leave Twitter? Why waste thousands of hours rebuilding a social network? That\u2019s why I am blogging again, because this is an investment of my time, rather than a waste of it. It is an amusing paradox that the pandemic, rather than help social networks thrive, has destroyed them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>When I heard about Substack Notes I felt an interest in the project. I liked the idea of a site where we could write long form posts on one side, and short form posts on the other. I liked the idea of having conversations with people and creating new connections. That\u2019s why I use social […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[416,43],"tags":[780,5129,5128],"class_list":["post-9178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-media-deontology","category-social-media-living-room","tag-social-media","tag-substack","tag-substack-notes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9179,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9178\/revisions\/9179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}