Incidentally, Substack CEO Chris Best appeared today with Parler CEO John Matze on the Megyn Kelly Show, to discuss “tech censorship, President Trump's ban from Twitter, the rise of independent media, free speech, [and] what everyday Americans can do to fight back.” https://t.co/tZZeL3Cb3u
— Jay Owens (@hautepop) January 14, 2021
…and with this, I’m pretty done with Substack. I’d like to continue to maintain my free, but private newsletter, which I feel has been the best thing I’ve done online in a long time, but I’m sure as hell not inclined to help pad their numbers anymore.
So, my options are:
- Find another free newsletter provider that isn’t currently run by shitheads, or likely to get bought by them (this last part’s completely out of my control)
- Use the newsletter apparatus I have built into this website to continue the newsletter here, and merge my Substack subscriber list with the main one.
The problem (if it is a problem) with the second option is that I want the newsletter to be private, and for the newsletter to be part of the website’s infrastructure and private, I’m pretty sure this website needs to be private.
I’d been kinda thinking about making it that way for a while, anyway, even if it’s potentially a big pain in the ass for my readers. I generally feel better about writing if I don’t have to look over my shoulder while I do it, if you follow. I’m not interested in being famous or popular. I’m not making money off of this website. I have other websites I can keep public (for now). Let’s poke at things, as a group, and at least see if it will be as much of a pain in the ass as I fear it could be, alright? If it sucks, I’ll come up with something else.
As I’m about to do things, I’ll let you know, and if you need to opt out of anything, let me know, and it’s totally OK, but otherwise, I ask that you bear with me, as there’s a lot of other stuff going on in my life at the moment. Thanks in advance for your understanding.