Well, you guys platform falls into the same problem.
I own nothing.
When the politics shifts and you need to kiss up, then this platform will not be any different.
I’d build on top of it if it was open source and we can self host, and I’d use your service if I can lift and shift in the event your leadership teams and investors take control,…
Well, you guys platform falls into the same problem.
I own nothing.
When the politics shifts and you need to kiss up, then this platform will not be any different.
I’d build on top of it if it was open source and we can self host, and I’d use your service if I can lift and shift in the event your leadership teams and investors take control, which will happen eventually.
So Id rather just take my time and build my own little thing where I can host everything myself and I have full control over the database and periodic backups, the email list and phone numbers, etc.
I agree. We need to get out and socialize and build community the old fashion way. That is the only way to win the battle. They will control anything and everything online. Let's encourage each other to build better and stronger 💪 ✨️ ❤️
If you feel uneasy about social media and its ownership, have you thought about stepping away from it? I owned my own small business for YEARS with zero social media exposure. I suspect it can still be done effectively....
@shawn take a look at Nostr, it's early days and onboarding is challenging but it's a protocol like the early days of the internet. It supports short and long form content, and community but most importantly nobody can shut you down as it's aiming to be censorship resistant.
So very different to these web2 SaaS platforms and also different to Ghost and standalone WordPress etc etc
Why the First Amendment is dead, or-- comatose. Except on Substack, but that means we can be trolled by malicious types... the price we pay for freedom. I'll take the trolls over censorship any time.
I have a flip phone for travel and emergencies, but never wanted to get a "smart'"phone at all for assorted reasons. Don't need it! I email a ton though.
Me too! I still have a "landline" with the same number I've had for 45 years, no TV, no laptop, no tablet, no smartphone, just a little Tracfone/flip phone for power outages and traveling. I turn on my reliable old desktop computer twice a day to check my emails and the local news and weather. There's no contract for my flip phone, which costs me $23 per quarter. At age 82, I prefer to spend my time engaging with real people, pets, great-grandchildren, local musicians; getting lost in a good book with a cup of herbal tea and some dark chocolate (organic, Fair Traded, supporting women farmers in Africa), watching sunsets over the ocean, and musing over Substack posts and comment threads. My tribe!
You and I are old enough to remember PRE home computers and these horrible cell phones. Everywhere I go, people are staring at their phones, there's no communication anymore... it's truly creepy. Thank God I was born before all this, and I remember it! And I want it BACK. xo
I remember those days! We got landline service for free, radio, TV, everything for free, Candy bars cost a nickel ice cream a quarter, and hamburger was 39 cents a pound, about the same as leaded gas for your car. Babies were bathed in Phisohex 1 x daily and we used Vasoline to polish our Mary Janes. Penny candy even cost a penny, and with only 2 choices in the potato chip aisle, we had half the day to play hide and seek with our friends outside... Those really were the days.
Now that’s how to beat the system! By real human engagement and living real life. I’m a homebody, but I still miss the days before social media sucked us in😩
And the most critical problem about all of this is... what happens to us as physical bodies, and why do I get the nagging feeling that we, as physical bodies, are losers in all this.. racket ?
A long time ago I started thinking that the living energy ? that gets us up in the morning, as in "élan vital" in French, was also the energy that pushes men and women to look for each other, find each other and ensure that there will be a next generation. The industrial revolution has deviated this energy to seriously curtail our RE-production, by pushing it into anthill PRO- duction, thereby wreaking havoc on us and our desire, not just sexual desire, but desire to get up in the morning and BE, with other living, breathing, feeling, and touching people.
But really, there is no way that we can not be dependant... dependant on other people with faces, or dependant on utility companies ? Aspiring to absolute ? independance is maybe our major folly right now, as it has been in the past, moreover.
Exactly. We writers are expendable idiots to these companies. They don’t have one speck of respect for how hard we work for pennies…Since I’ve been writing since I was about 10 years old (over half a century) I am sick to death of the BS.
Because we ARE. 5G is TOO STRONG. It's cooking the entire planet, not just us. A long list of disease and illness is actually EMF's. You'd be surprised how many things. And this is on purpose, they're trying to milk us for all the money they can get for health care before they just zap us all. Sorry, but that's the plan... So... we opt out! And shut it down! Poor critters, they have no voice.
We have brilliant people. We can wire up with fiber optics or whatever, and put those brilliant folks to work to find a better way to have portable phones, if that's what we want. But not at the expense of everything dying! That's insane. I think I said somewhere else, it seems to be what these Globalist psycho killers WANT... to cull us down to a few hundred thousand? NOT gonna happen, but in the meantime, there's a lot of needless suffering and even death going on. Help.
They wanted to surveil us, and spy on us, and zap us... these "smart" phones are actually quite dangerous, and give off a LOT of EMF's... We should NOT be holding them up to our brain cases, nor carrying them around right next to our bodies... People don't realize... 5G is WAY too strong, it's cooking the whole planet... We really should back off and find better means than 5G... It's really bad for us! And the critters, and insects (THAT's where the bees went!) and even plants.
Check out "The Invisible Rainbow," the history of electricity. LOTS of citation, too.
Building community the old fashioned way is fine in a world where your community of friends live in the same town ... but mine is spread all over the globe so internet socializing enables contact.
Build your community slowly. The gym, church, community centers, get out and start talking to people. Find your community because we all have people in our neighborhood that we can connect with. This will be so important going forward. Sending positive vibes. We got this!💪
The "old fashioned" way doesn't work well for me either. There are so many language and cultural and logistical barriers that limits building a community in person. My "community" is global too.
But trust an older gal for a sec-- real life community is what we humans have ALWAYS had... and it's too good to give it up. But the younger folks don't have this experience... not as we used to. It will take some time to "get it," and it will be work for a while, but... a good way to start is to go and sit in the stands and watch kids play sports... and talk to other people. Just one idea. ;) xo
Might sound a bit cliche or trite, but I think everyone needs to find a balance with all this
I sympathize with those saying their community is global, but those kinds of connections aren't quite the same as the ones I have with those I can go have lunch or dinner with at a moment's notice or just bump into at a thing (I'll admit, those can be a bit superficial/shallow at times too)
One thing that we in Maine have accomplished is to push for a state Constitutional amendment that allows towns to declare food sovereignty (see the template here: local food rules.org) and now some 120 towns have passed it, by wide margins no less! Go to the link just cited for the particulars. Try it! You'll like it!
Indeed, and it’s High Time we did something about the money problem. Accumulated wealth in the (past and) current global situation is just untenable, people are weak that way, in nearly all cases, it seems. We do have our issues, and I would imagine that thousands of years of being lorded over by filthy rich people has taught us to be hungry for monetary wealth, instead of hungry for community and doing good works… Because it’s clear that there is a certain kind of safety in having money. Money = Power.
I certainly agree. At the least there ought to be a not only a much higher MINIMUM wage,but also a MAXIMUM (from all sources of income) with the option for the currently wealthy either to be taxed at 100% over a certain amount or donated to legitimate organizations and charities, e.g. a GENUINE public broadcasting news system that is not subservient to the State dept and CIA, but run as a non-profit by people we vote in who we believe can be trusted (and expelled if not). Yes,we need to find away--not that hard to do--to separate money from political power.
I've been an anti-imperialist since 1966. Republicans are now learning what we radical activists learned in the sixties about betrayals of government. I gather that you may be of that vintage too, or close to it?
1. "The wheel's still in spin and there's no telliin' who that it's namin' for the first one now will later be last; for the times they are a changin'
2. "And I'll stand on your grave till I know that you're dead,
3. "Not even Jesus could forgive what you do."
4. "We'''ll shout from the bow your days are numbered, and like Pharoah's tribe they'll be drownded in the tide and like Goliath, they'll be conquered."
The dialectical process is hard at work, meaning the internal contradictions will force a resolution, and we are witnessing a brittle system--hard but fragile.
And I just remembered something else— Anyone who is buying a home should know that they won’t OWN the land underneath it. Just the house. Most likely. This is what I’m seeing happening in WA, and I assume it’s happening all over the US, and elsewhere, too.
LAND GRABS. That’s what ALL these “natural” disasters are about. So saith the dog.
I remember Henry Fucking Kissinger saying something akin to "Whoever controls the FOOD controls the PEOPLE." I think he borrowed that from someone else, but the point is, he was a psychopath, and he's RIGHT about the control of the food supply, and when he died, I got up off my furry bootox and danced around the room.
Everybody loves talking about building community online, but doesnt do anything to bring the community together. Start a hippie garage rock band or bake bread and bring it to market. Have those conversations about how to replace the system in person rather than online otherwise nothing is going to change.
More power to you wherever you build. But with Substack, you own what matters: your mailing list and your content. That gives you a rock-solid guarantee that—even if a meteor were to strike the platform—you have total ownership of the assets that matter to your publication and business. You lose nothing. By building on Substack, you only gain. You get access to a network that helps you grow your audience, tools that help you maximize your reach and revenue, and a system that keeps evolving to give you the best publishing power on the internet.
YouTube, Threads, even TikTok content creators also own their own content.
Yeah, on Substack you own your mailing list. But ya' know why? Because YOU HAVE TO BRING IT! The point of those other platforms is that they BRING you an audience you had no access to previously.
You are reaching so hard here to take advantage of a situation that is orthogonal to your offering.
1) Platforms can't "censor" you, they're not official governing bodies. They can choose not to host your material—it's an agreement to use their product.
2) You really believe there's "censorship" on those platforms?!?
Okay, I'm assuming this is probably a joke I'm not getting, but just in case...
You're aware that cloud data also exists on servers somewhere, right..? And that Substack's hosting will certainly be spread across servers in multiple locations just like yours?
Haha yeah. The meteor strike is a silly reason to say people should use Substack (the author's argument), which was kinda my original point.
What's more likely than a meteor strike is Substack shuts down, changes owners, cancels my account, or whatever. With my own cloud servers I don't need to worry about that nearly as much. While I think the author's points are good and more creators should have more sovereignty in general, I do not think Substack is the solution. It's the pot calling the kettle black.
That's only true if you never make your own backups. It would be true of anything stored on your computer, without offsite backups, if you had a house fire (or meteor strike, etc.). I think Hamish's larger point is that you retain intellectual/copyright ownership of your own content.
Consider the mailing list directed arrows pointing into your publication and account. We own it and it matters. But our experience is also what we subscribe/follow. Arrows pointing out from our account. Do we own that?
Which analogy?
Ownership as in homesteading?
Ownership as in Condo? (Is there a Substack condo board?)
Do we own our privacy within the platform?
Do we have a say in shared infrastructure. Would that be included in what matters from your perspective?
And if your town gets hit by a meteor, whoever survives is going to want to make physical contact with each other, because that's the essential Human experience.
We mustn't LOSE that, and that's what the Nasties want... for us to lose our connections to each other in REAL LIFE.
Hey Shawn! It doesn’t look like you’ve used Substack.. your profile does not subscribe to anything and you haven’t published anything yet. When you start to use Substack, you get the email addresses and payment information of all of your subscribers and can always reach them, even if you pack up and leave - total ownership compared to what creators have been forced to deal when.
We haven’t changed our policies based on politics, and we never will.
This is untrue. Yes, if you leave Substack you can take the email addresses and payment info of your subscribers with. you, but a lot of platforms have that (like WordPress and Ghost). That's been true since the beginning of the web.
I don't know how it works with social media platforms, but why are you comparing yourself to social media platforms when the real comparison is (or should be) other site building/blog/newsletter platforms?
Net Neutrality has ended. The ISP's own the access to your site even if you are hosting it yourself.
At least for now, Substack is a good thing to build on. If you have to move later, hopefully your brand (Shawn McLean) will allow people to find you elsewhere. Updating your posts on multiple services like Substack and Facebook and others may also be a hedge.
I was thinking of developing an app that allowed users to communicate with each other over text messaging versus a website interface. All the messages would be stored on each person's device instead of some website. And when you commented on something, the comment would be texted to your list of members.
In this day and age of inexpensive disk it's probably doable. I have an app now My Info Index that stores information on your device instead of a website, but it does not do any texting. I'd have to learn.
Except that our devices are entirely hackable, and that was no accident. We are under surveillance, ALL of us, ALL the time. The downside of all this web thing.
While that is correct, it is on an individual device basis and illegal. The owner of website owns all the data and can sell it anywhere, and it is legal.
I did not know that Subtack gives us the copyright. That is very significant. Does that mean they cannot use or sell the information without consent?
Google and Microsoft, contractually, own your email. I suspected it would be the same with Facebook, X, and all the others. It's good to know it's not that way with Substack.
A contract is not valid if one party has not agreed to it... Nobody can OWN your email unless you AGREE to that. Trickery to get you to agree makes any contract invalid. And if I'm wrong, then I SHOULD BE right.
In the old days, we used to do these things without PERMISSION.
It was called "Hosting," and it was done in real life, in real spaces, like libraries, pubs, and coffee shops. We could see each other's faces, we had tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, and MUSIC... Those were good times. Much collaboration and mingling. I miss that. It's much more HUMAN than typing and fighting, lol.
Shawn, do you have a website or blog as your home base? And if so do you host on your own server? Asking as I'm waffling between having a Substack presence or creating a Wordpress.org type website with a blog and using MailerLite for email for my creative stuff.
Very true, that is why it is still vital to learn at least one way to generate your empire from scratch without being limited in any type of way because of it not being open source. In my case, I had to keep peeling the layers back in order to become fully self sufficient online. Which is really only acquired by obtaining a worthy GPU of course. (Or researching alternatives like to Github Pages, which are simply free low-cost open-source hosting solutions)
A GPU can be used for various reasons pertaining to data storage and high-speed loading time. Plus, whatever you can do with a raspberry pi, you can do with a GPU. (And vice-versa)
There’s no limit to what you can do when you consider that you can store and compute more data (even faster crypto mining rigs).
I will use these platforms until I can’t. It provides me with blueprints and practices that I can use on my own when they no longer exist. I will have my own as well, but I have also started my boots on the ground initiative and have been networking again virtually and in person, and getting set for my own live workshops, etc. I like connecting with real fleshy humans. I say don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. [Also, if you throw the baby out you could go to jail… so…]. We will all find our way to what works or build something new regardless of whether things are taken away. We always have. 💪🏽 But yes @shawn you are right, it is wise to think ahead.
Took the words right out of my mouth. Substack is a third party..! The only way is blogging on your OWN site and then maybe having a 'copy' of it on here.
I’ve been a part of many startups and once they get past a certain growth stage, they must abide by what their masters tell them to do. Who are YC, A18z and other firms.
It is an ecosystem so all portfolio companies must move as one unit to support each other.
So the newer guys coming into the system are going the route of open platform and open code. They make their money if you host on their servers, but if you want, you can host it yourself anywhere.
I'm not so sure. I think the CIA was behind a LOT of this whole thing, and they didn't mean to "do good." They meant to do some tricky spy stuff. Surveillance. Planting ideas and let's face it, Lies. It doesn't help when all the press is now corporate and the First Amendment is quite dead. Without Freedom of Speech, tyranny just walks right in.
Well, you guys platform falls into the same problem.
I own nothing.
When the politics shifts and you need to kiss up, then this platform will not be any different.
I’d build on top of it if it was open source and we can self host, and I’d use your service if I can lift and shift in the event your leadership teams and investors take control, which will happen eventually.
So Id rather just take my time and build my own little thing where I can host everything myself and I have full control over the database and periodic backups, the email list and phone numbers, etc.
So something you guys should really think about.
I agree. We need to get out and socialize and build community the old fashion way. That is the only way to win the battle. They will control anything and everything online. Let's encourage each other to build better and stronger 💪 ✨️ ❤️
This is the realization I’m coming to, on the ground foot work.
The digital funnels are all controlled.
The search engines won’t show you, search is a mess too because it’s all gimmicks for who can manipulate the algorithms.
The mobile app marketplaces are heavily controlled.
The browsers are owned by the same companies.
So all digital entry points are owned and controlled.
If you feel uneasy about social media and its ownership, have you thought about stepping away from it? I owned my own small business for YEARS with zero social media exposure. I suspect it can still be done effectively....
I'm trying to do that NOW. And I'm old enough to remember how lovely it was BEFORE CELL PHONES.
The CONVENIENCE will get you every time, and "They" know that!
Hi Jan.
I'm curious, what is your small business?
Sorry I'm just now seeing your question. I owned a small advertising/PR firm working with small businesses and sole proprietors.
@shawn take a look at Nostr, it's early days and onboarding is challenging but it's a protocol like the early days of the internet. It supports short and long form content, and community but most importantly nobody can shut you down as it's aiming to be censorship resistant.
So very different to these web2 SaaS platforms and also different to Ghost and standalone WordPress etc etc
Yep nostr is the result of when Devs think they are product managers 🤦♂️
Sooner or later onboarding will get solved but nip-05, lightning addresses etc are all confusion points at the moment rather than enablers.
This is part of the Globalist Agenda...
Why the First Amendment is dead, or-- comatose. Except on Substack, but that means we can be trolled by malicious types... the price we pay for freedom. I'll take the trolls over censorship any time.
I do believe that was the PLAN.
Yesssssss............
Your pessimism and despair is the certain way to victory! LOL
I have a flip phone for travel and emergencies, but never wanted to get a "smart'"phone at all for assorted reasons. Don't need it! I email a ton though.
Me too! I still have a "landline" with the same number I've had for 45 years, no TV, no laptop, no tablet, no smartphone, just a little Tracfone/flip phone for power outages and traveling. I turn on my reliable old desktop computer twice a day to check my emails and the local news and weather. There's no contract for my flip phone, which costs me $23 per quarter. At age 82, I prefer to spend my time engaging with real people, pets, great-grandchildren, local musicians; getting lost in a good book with a cup of herbal tea and some dark chocolate (organic, Fair Traded, supporting women farmers in Africa), watching sunsets over the ocean, and musing over Substack posts and comment threads. My tribe!
You and I are old enough to remember PRE home computers and these horrible cell phones. Everywhere I go, people are staring at their phones, there's no communication anymore... it's truly creepy. Thank God I was born before all this, and I remember it! And I want it BACK. xo
I remember those days! We got landline service for free, radio, TV, everything for free, Candy bars cost a nickel ice cream a quarter, and hamburger was 39 cents a pound, about the same as leaded gas for your car. Babies were bathed in Phisohex 1 x daily and we used Vasoline to polish our Mary Janes. Penny candy even cost a penny, and with only 2 choices in the potato chip aisle, we had half the day to play hide and seek with our friends outside... Those really were the days.
Now that’s how to beat the system! By real human engagement and living real life. I’m a homebody, but I still miss the days before social media sucked us in😩
And the most critical problem about all of this is... what happens to us as physical bodies, and why do I get the nagging feeling that we, as physical bodies, are losers in all this.. racket ?
I say, "If you can't live without your phone; Then you will die!"
Very few people will accept that reality. The more complex a device, the more dangerous is your "Dependence".
A long time ago I started thinking that the living energy ? that gets us up in the morning, as in "élan vital" in French, was also the energy that pushes men and women to look for each other, find each other and ensure that there will be a next generation. The industrial revolution has deviated this energy to seriously curtail our RE-production, by pushing it into anthill PRO- duction, thereby wreaking havoc on us and our desire, not just sexual desire, but desire to get up in the morning and BE, with other living, breathing, feeling, and touching people.
But really, there is no way that we can not be dependant... dependant on other people with faces, or dependant on utility companies ? Aspiring to absolute ? independance is maybe our major folly right now, as it has been in the past, moreover.
Interdependence is "Civilization". Enforced "Co-dependence" is the tyranny of an abusive relationship! I divorced fro, this long ago.
Interdependence. A Tibetan belief, describing a beautiful and a most evolved humanity.
Ah, someone else who understand this! Good job.
Exactly. We writers are expendable idiots to these companies. They don’t have one speck of respect for how hard we work for pennies…Since I’ve been writing since I was about 10 years old (over half a century) I am sick to death of the BS.
Because we ARE. 5G is TOO STRONG. It's cooking the entire planet, not just us. A long list of disease and illness is actually EMF's. You'd be surprised how many things. And this is on purpose, they're trying to milk us for all the money they can get for health care before they just zap us all. Sorry, but that's the plan... So... we opt out! And shut it down! Poor critters, they have no voice.
We suspect it’s interfering with nutrient uptake in plants too.
Indeed. It's kind of a SERIOUS PROBLEM.
It's just too damn strong.
We have brilliant people. We can wire up with fiber optics or whatever, and put those brilliant folks to work to find a better way to have portable phones, if that's what we want. But not at the expense of everything dying! That's insane. I think I said somewhere else, it seems to be what these Globalist psycho killers WANT... to cull us down to a few hundred thousand? NOT gonna happen, but in the meantime, there's a lot of needless suffering and even death going on. Help.
I get it. But, tbh, the last thing the ocean needs is your phone. \_(ツ)_/¯
I will NOT throw mine in the ocean, but maybe still with the pickaxe...
I want to have a ritualistic KILLING of my phone... I'm thinking pickaxe...
And THEN into the ocean.
They wanted to surveil us, and spy on us, and zap us... these "smart" phones are actually quite dangerous, and give off a LOT of EMF's... We should NOT be holding them up to our brain cases, nor carrying them around right next to our bodies... People don't realize... 5G is WAY too strong, it's cooking the whole planet... We really should back off and find better means than 5G... It's really bad for us! And the critters, and insects (THAT's where the bees went!) and even plants.
Check out "The Invisible Rainbow," the history of electricity. LOTS of citation, too.
I’ll check that out. Thanks!
FYI, the book has COPIOUS citation... Don't let the thickness of it scare you off!
lol
And also, it's very well-written and is actually quite interesting! It's a good book.
Me, too, to Cate's comment.
Building community the old fashioned way is fine in a world where your community of friends live in the same town ... but mine is spread all over the globe so internet socializing enables contact.
Build your community slowly. The gym, church, community centers, get out and start talking to people. Find your community because we all have people in our neighborhood that we can connect with. This will be so important going forward. Sending positive vibes. We got this!💪
You got it right, Sonia!
yesss
yessssss to this <3
Email. Zoom calls.
Up to a point but "the old fashioned way" didn't/doesn't have those options, it's more based on guys you meet in the pub.
The "old fashioned" way doesn't work well for me either. There are so many language and cultural and logistical barriers that limits building a community in person. My "community" is global too.
You can have both.
But trust an older gal for a sec-- real life community is what we humans have ALWAYS had... and it's too good to give it up. But the younger folks don't have this experience... not as we used to. It will take some time to "get it," and it will be work for a while, but... a good way to start is to go and sit in the stands and watch kids play sports... and talk to other people. Just one idea. ;) xo
Or the coffee shop.
And... what happened to theater? It's gone. :(
So much change, for the worse.
Might sound a bit cliche or trite, but I think everyone needs to find a balance with all this
I sympathize with those saying their community is global, but those kinds of connections aren't quite the same as the ones I have with those I can go have lunch or dinner with at a moment's notice or just bump into at a thing (I'll admit, those can be a bit superficial/shallow at times too)
One thing that we in Maine have accomplished is to push for a state Constitutional amendment that allows towns to declare food sovereignty (see the template here: local food rules.org) and now some 120 towns have passed it, by wide margins no less! Go to the link just cited for the particulars. Try it! You'll like it!
Correction: no space site is localfoodrules.org
That’s very fortunate!
And we should take back our farmlands from CORPORATE ownership.
That is just Wrong.
And expropriate Black Rock's control of so much residential housing they buy up and then extract rent. let that rock sink!
Indeed, and it’s High Time we did something about the money problem. Accumulated wealth in the (past and) current global situation is just untenable, people are weak that way, in nearly all cases, it seems. We do have our issues, and I would imagine that thousands of years of being lorded over by filthy rich people has taught us to be hungry for monetary wealth, instead of hungry for community and doing good works… Because it’s clear that there is a certain kind of safety in having money. Money = Power.
I certainly agree. At the least there ought to be a not only a much higher MINIMUM wage,but also a MAXIMUM (from all sources of income) with the option for the currently wealthy either to be taxed at 100% over a certain amount or donated to legitimate organizations and charities, e.g. a GENUINE public broadcasting news system that is not subservient to the State dept and CIA, but run as a non-profit by people we vote in who we believe can be trusted (and expelled if not). Yes,we need to find away--not that hard to do--to separate money from political power.
You are One of My Kind. ^_^
You know not so long ago, the wealthy were taxed at 92% !!!! Of course, it's pretty likely they had loopholes, but still...
Wealth caps sound good to me.
I've been an anti-imperialist since 1966. Republicans are now learning what we radical activists learned in the sixties about betrayals of government. I gather that you may be of that vintage too, or close to it?
I've been anti-imperialist since as long as I can remember! Born in '60, tho. Anyway, PRE-CELL PHONE!
Sigh.
I'm down for a Whole New Thing. How many hundreds, thousands of years have we been under the thumbs of tyrants?? ENOUGH.
Lots of relevant early Dylan on this:
1. "The wheel's still in spin and there's no telliin' who that it's namin' for the first one now will later be last; for the times they are a changin'
2. "And I'll stand on your grave till I know that you're dead,
3. "Not even Jesus could forgive what you do."
4. "We'''ll shout from the bow your days are numbered, and like Pharoah's tribe they'll be drownded in the tide and like Goliath, they'll be conquered."
The dialectical process is hard at work, meaning the internal contradictions will force a resolution, and we are witnessing a brittle system--hard but fragile.
And I just remembered something else— Anyone who is buying a home should know that they won’t OWN the land underneath it. Just the house. Most likely. This is what I’m seeing happening in WA, and I assume it’s happening all over the US, and elsewhere, too.
LAND GRABS. That’s what ALL these “natural” disasters are about. So saith the dog.
I want to add to the above about farmlands...
I remember Henry Fucking Kissinger saying something akin to "Whoever controls the FOOD controls the PEOPLE." I think he borrowed that from someone else, but the point is, he was a psychopath, and he's RIGHT about the control of the food supply, and when he died, I got up off my furry bootox and danced around the room.
(suck on THAT, Henry, you nasty corpse, you.)
Excellent idea !
Yes!
The TIME is NOW!!
CF, The Ultimate Brand Strategist
I agree, Sonia. I’ll stick with my people on social media & blog, Before Sundown. That’s secure.
cerobinsonauthor.com
Everybody loves talking about building community online, but doesnt do anything to bring the community together. Start a hippie garage rock band or bake bread and bring it to market. Have those conversations about how to replace the system in person rather than online otherwise nothing is going to change.
Tell me about it, I just printed. And I'm about to hit the union station for personal interactions for my new business.
i totally agree ... but also easy on the battle talk.
YES.
More power to you wherever you build. But with Substack, you own what matters: your mailing list and your content. That gives you a rock-solid guarantee that—even if a meteor were to strike the platform—you have total ownership of the assets that matter to your publication and business. You lose nothing. By building on Substack, you only gain. You get access to a network that helps you grow your audience, tools that help you maximize your reach and revenue, and a system that keeps evolving to give you the best publishing power on the internet.
YouTube, Threads, even TikTok content creators also own their own content.
Yeah, on Substack you own your mailing list. But ya' know why? Because YOU HAVE TO BRING IT! The point of those other platforms is that they BRING you an audience you had no access to previously.
You are reaching so hard here to take advantage of a situation that is orthogonal to your offering.
Yeah, maybe, but there's no censorship here.
1) Platforms can't "censor" you, they're not official governing bodies. They can choose not to host your material—it's an agreement to use their product.
2) You really believe there's "censorship" on those platforms?!?
Uh, yeah. 🤔
So much talking about ”owning”, why add followers in the first place? I have lost many ”owning subs” because of it.
Except that if you get hit by meteor, all your servers will be destroyed and I'd be left with nothing. No thanks.
You'd be left with REAL LIFE, lol. It's not so bad!
So where are you hosting your online content that's completely immune to meteor strike?
The "cloud" 🙃
Okay, I'm assuming this is probably a joke I'm not getting, but just in case...
You're aware that cloud data also exists on servers somewhere, right..? And that Substack's hosting will certainly be spread across servers in multiple locations just like yours?
Haha yeah. The meteor strike is a silly reason to say people should use Substack (the author's argument), which was kinda my original point.
What's more likely than a meteor strike is Substack shuts down, changes owners, cancels my account, or whatever. With my own cloud servers I don't need to worry about that nearly as much. While I think the author's points are good and more creators should have more sovereignty in general, I do not think Substack is the solution. It's the pot calling the kettle black.
At you in the cloud with regional redundancy? Asking for a friend …
LOL
That's only true if you never make your own backups. It would be true of anything stored on your computer, without offsite backups, if you had a house fire (or meteor strike, etc.). I think Hamish's larger point is that you retain intellectual/copyright ownership of your own content.
Fair regarding the backups. How often do Substack writers backup their content I wonder?
You also retain intellectual ownership on your own blog and social media so I don't really get Hamish's point (see https://boagip.com/social-media-and-intellectual-property-rights-protect-your-digital-creations/). On social media or Substack you don't own your account, which is my point.
I haven’t backed up. I likely should.
Assume distributed, redundant cloud. But if Substack infrastructure got hit by a physical meteor, we earthlings have other problems.
Information meteors, however … you are right; particularly if info lost before we can back up or corrupted in ways we can’t detect.
Consider the mailing list directed arrows pointing into your publication and account. We own it and it matters. But our experience is also what we subscribe/follow. Arrows pointing out from our account. Do we own that?
Which analogy?
Ownership as in homesteading?
Ownership as in Condo? (Is there a Substack condo board?)
Do we own our privacy within the platform?
Do we have a say in shared infrastructure. Would that be included in what matters from your perspective?
But if a meteor were to strike 'it would be an Ele and coms would be fried..
And if your town gets hit by a meteor, whoever survives is going to want to make physical contact with each other, because that's the essential Human experience.
We mustn't LOSE that, and that's what the Nasties want... for us to lose our connections to each other in REAL LIFE.
Oh, and they also want us to LOSE our backups. ;)
Hey Shawn! It doesn’t look like you’ve used Substack.. your profile does not subscribe to anything and you haven’t published anything yet. When you start to use Substack, you get the email addresses and payment information of all of your subscribers and can always reach them, even if you pack up and leave - total ownership compared to what creators have been forced to deal when.
We haven’t changed our policies based on politics, and we never will.
How about a list of my followers?
This is untrue. Yes, if you leave Substack you can take the email addresses and payment info of your subscribers with. you, but a lot of platforms have that (like WordPress and Ghost). That's been true since the beginning of the web.
I don't know how it works with social media platforms, but why are you comparing yourself to social media platforms when the real comparison is (or should be) other site building/blog/newsletter platforms?
Catherine im new to substack and am struggling to post here! Why?
Net Neutrality has ended. The ISP's own the access to your site even if you are hosting it yourself.
At least for now, Substack is a good thing to build on. If you have to move later, hopefully your brand (Shawn McLean) will allow people to find you elsewhere. Updating your posts on multiple services like Substack and Facebook and others may also be a hedge.
I was thinking of developing an app that allowed users to communicate with each other over text messaging versus a website interface. All the messages would be stored on each person's device instead of some website. And when you commented on something, the comment would be texted to your list of members.
In this day and age of inexpensive disk it's probably doable. I have an app now My Info Index that stores information on your device instead of a website, but it does not do any texting. I'd have to learn.
Except that our devices are entirely hackable, and that was no accident. We are under surveillance, ALL of us, ALL the time. The downside of all this web thing.
While that is correct, it is on an individual device basis and illegal. The owner of website owns all the data and can sell it anywhere, and it is legal.
Heeheheeheeheheheeheheeeeee "illegal"??????? are you kiddin moi?
But, yeah, technically, I think you're right. Too bad the Nasties donut give a frack about legality.
And also... Substack very nicely gives us COPYRIGHT over our own page.
I did not know that Subtack gives us the copyright. That is very significant. Does that mean they cannot use or sell the information without consent?
Google and Microsoft, contractually, own your email. I suspected it would be the same with Facebook, X, and all the others. It's good to know it's not that way with Substack.
It SHOULD mean that, and I think it still does.
A contract is not valid if one party has not agreed to it... Nobody can OWN your email unless you AGREE to that. Trickery to get you to agree makes any contract invalid. And if I'm wrong, then I SHOULD BE right.
In the old days, we used to do these things without PERMISSION.
It was called "Hosting," and it was done in real life, in real spaces, like libraries, pubs, and coffee shops. We could see each other's faces, we had tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, and MUSIC... Those were good times. Much collaboration and mingling. I miss that. It's much more HUMAN than typing and fighting, lol.
Shawn, do you have a website or blog as your home base? And if so do you host on your own server? Asking as I'm waffling between having a Substack presence or creating a Wordpress.org type website with a blog and using MailerLite for email for my creative stuff.
None of them suited my needs.
I played around with Substack, I used to write on LinkedIn, tested out twitter, had my own on Wordpress and even old school blogger from google.
I tried out the web3 stuff such as mirror but they still didn’t suit my needs.
So I ended up building something very specific for myself.
I read a lot and wanted something like a Goodreads, substack and infused with my own research workflows.
So I have my bookshelves here: https://www.sovoli.com/shawn/shelves
Then I can create a form of post, this post can be annotations from books with AI helping to compile the connections to the books in the background like this: https://www.sovoli.com/shawn/the-journey-to-conscious-reasoning-understanding-ego-and-the-environment
Or I can make a regular post like this: https://www.sovoli.com/shawn/the-wise-men
I’m playing around with having bots comment on the content to point me to further readings in a cross disciplinary way, this is just scripted but it looks like this below and needs fine tuning: https://www.sovoli.com/shawn/reflections-on-balance-energy-and-the-guiding-force
My primary community is people on WhatsApp so I need to integrate with that and run notifications and subscribing via WhatsApp numbers.
Will see how it goes, the code is also source available here: https://github.com/shawnmclean/sovoli
(it actually started out as a ChatGPT plugin to compile research and send them to my database)
Yeah, what he said.
This is SADD!! But TRUE!!
CF, The Ultimate Brand Strategist
Very true, that is why it is still vital to learn at least one way to generate your empire from scratch without being limited in any type of way because of it not being open source. In my case, I had to keep peeling the layers back in order to become fully self sufficient online. Which is really only acquired by obtaining a worthy GPU of course. (Or researching alternatives like to Github Pages, which are simply free low-cost open-source hosting solutions)
explain more about why you needed a gpu?
A GPU can be used for various reasons pertaining to data storage and high-speed loading time. Plus, whatever you can do with a raspberry pi, you can do with a GPU. (And vice-versa)
There’s no limit to what you can do when you consider that you can store and compute more data (even faster crypto mining rigs).
It’s back to building your own website again. Imagine how far you’ll get with that idea! 😜
I will use these platforms until I can’t. It provides me with blueprints and practices that I can use on my own when they no longer exist. I will have my own as well, but I have also started my boots on the ground initiative and have been networking again virtually and in person, and getting set for my own live workshops, etc. I like connecting with real fleshy humans. I say don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. [Also, if you throw the baby out you could go to jail… so…]. We will all find our way to what works or build something new regardless of whether things are taken away. We always have. 💪🏽 But yes @shawn you are right, it is wise to think ahead.
Took the words right out of my mouth. Substack is a third party..! The only way is blogging on your OWN site and then maybe having a 'copy' of it on here.
They all set out to do good.
I’ve been a part of many startups and once they get past a certain growth stage, they must abide by what their masters tell them to do. Who are YC, A18z and other firms.
It is an ecosystem so all portfolio companies must move as one unit to support each other.
So the newer guys coming into the system are going the route of open platform and open code. They make their money if you host on their servers, but if you want, you can host it yourself anywhere.
All we can really do is enjoy it while it lasts.
I'm not so sure. I think the CIA was behind a LOT of this whole thing, and they didn't mean to "do good." They meant to do some tricky spy stuff. Surveillance. Planting ideas and let's face it, Lies. It doesn't help when all the press is now corporate and the First Amendment is quite dead. Without Freedom of Speech, tyranny just walks right in.