Platform reality
Enjoy it while it lasts.
“Substack will continue to change, and those changes have been, and will continue to be, perfectly platform-ish. [...] Expect, also, that writers will continue to mold their work to fit Substack’s particular ecology, rather than ‘merely’ use the tools to pursue their independent visions and ambitions. We learned this about platforms a long time ago: following the old newspaper schematic, they aren’t the printing presses, but rather the assignment editors. [...] There’s one platform for which none of this is true, and that’s the web platform, because it offers the grain of a medium — book, movie, album — rather than the seduction of a casino. The web platform makes no demands because it offers nothing beyond the opportunity to do good work. Certainly it offers no attention — that, you have to find on your own. Here is your printing press.”
Read This is curated by Stephen Knezovich. Each issue shares resources and insights to help writers launch, improve & grow their email newsletter. This issue links to a blog post by Robin Sloan (h/t Kottke.org).
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