Substack Notes came about in 2023. I wrote it about it last April, and thought it was great.
It lets you interact with plenty of other Substack writers and users, which is great for snagging few subscribers here there, but… it’s slowly devolving into Twitter.
Here and there I see some sea-lion activiy. I see crap I just don’t wanna see. I know, I know… I can block and hide, or just not use Substack Notes at all. This is probably the direction I need to go, which is a shame.
I’ve even seen the classic “let’s reply 13 times to the troll,” and when you click through, you see said troll has like 13 subscribers.
This happened all the time on Twitter.
I find myself in the middle of posting to Substack Notes, then remember this blog. It reminds me of all the time and energy I spent posting to Twitter, when I could have been writing my ideas here, where they’d be much more accessible.
“But Seth, how will people find your blog?”
I don’t care.
Seth Godin started writing his blog decades ago at this point, right? I visit his site a few times a week.
If people find my writing here and enjoy it, great. Book mark it, I guess. You’re an adult, figure it out.
Substack Notes, and so many platforms in general, all seek to build the walled garden. The ease of posting, coupled with the frictionless likes and replies, is just social media all over again.