Thanks for the fabulous analysis. I'm having a complicated reaction to the Notes thing too. The first few days felt great. But then the whole 'my opinion is right and yours is wrong' thing seemed to have kicked in, which is unawesome.
I've enjoyed reading and chatting to you in a bunch of different comments sections. I like how you think and hope you find a way to navigate it all in a way that works for you.
The brain stuff was fascinating. All the best to you and yours.
Thanks Medha. I have enjoyed getting to know different people like yourself and it has been a joy. I realize without knowing the details of how Substack thrives, perhaps Social Media is the best approach to growing the business. In this early phase, organic growth of the readers and writers and a place to meet in the middle was fun. It may just be for viability, more ways to generate interest are needed. Before i decided to step back, I made a chart of pros and cons. I also realize that maybe my aversion to SM is somewhat unique and maybe I am the one who needs to be more flexible. After reading your comment (and the ones b4 on this thread, I look at my list and zero in on what I am thinking. Maybe SM is simply the sales tax necessary on all of us to keep it going. I can be okay with that. What I also want to understand is how much noise to I impose on others -- keeping myself in the writing and the comments was something that was okay with me. The dilution I am not so sure about.
I am now firmly in the corner that everything begins with thought and it is inside our head. The impulsive stuff we CANNOT CHANGE nor should we. How we treat random thoughts on arrival is a different matter. It is work at times to let things simmer or just pass through. Anything important needs our conscious effort to set aside the impulse. I'm hoping two weeks makes it all make sense.
Mark, I had a chance to go to Walden Pond in Massachusetts last year. Thoreau cleared his mind by going to the woods for a time. In your sabbatical I hope you find that type of clarity. I looked forward to what you had to say in your Substack writings. You have great ideas to share so please keep perusing your place in this world.
Thanks Paul. For me nature is a great place to be. We've created an amazing but artificial world. I start my path through understanding the noise of Notes today. I will, without a doubt, continue to write, it is only a question of where and how. I enjoyed your snapshot of your draft folder. Mine is enormous! I put a number in front of the titles signifying my % complete -- If I feel like exploring one I can have a sense of those close to finished. As I've shared in my writing it was always about repetition and improving as only journaling, letter writing and technical writing were done a lot prior to Substack for me.
Thanks for your kind words as I sometime read my writing and just think I meander. I will continue to read your posts during my step back. In some ways my Subscriptions will join you as I am hoping the act of NOT SUBSCRIBING might be the volume control and even the mute button. I read about 35 Substacks (I checked last night). I Subscribe now to only 8 on a steady release schedule. The rest I bookmark. We willl see as I take Substack at their word that our SUBSCRIPTIONS drive our feed.
My secondary backup plan is to stay on Substack and gently encourage my readers to UNSUBSCRIBE if they prefer -- In that circumstance I could take on the forwarding task through a bit of an upgrade to my email client. In that way I could deliver my writing to those that care, they could retain the ability to comment and still receive my writing without the Social Media chatter that would accompany it originating from Substack. For those that don't mind how Substack behaves, they can remain subscribed. As long as Substack remains where they are policy-wise that could work.
It is funny b/c while I have a very large Rolodex, I never actively marketed my Substack to anyone. It has always been a onesey-twosey. I don't like the inbox invasion so I did not want to project that on others. So in about 10 days I should have zero subscriptions and not generating new content. It would seem I will have a good sense of how much noise Substack chooses to share at baseline. It would seem by dealing with the 1:MANY subscriptions I have plus the 1:MANY Subscribers I have, I can allow myself and my readers to make an informed decision on how much background noise they desire. All of this is putting the cart in front of the horse and I should not do that if my goal is a settled mind.
Good luck with your Substack. I can think of very few things more important for our world to sort out in the next two decades than how much we exercise for our physical, spiritual and emotional health coupled with what we feed the engine. Your Substack seems to focus on those important issues. Continued success and enjoy the ride.
Mark thanks for your reply. I have one more thought for you to ponder in your break From Substack. It's always amazed me how different things impact people in different ways. You read a restaurant review and one person loves it 5 stars and the next guy gives it 2 stars and says they will never go back. Same with movie reviews. My point is the Substack stuff that is troubling you intensely is not on my top 5 concerns. I know you are more knowledgeable on the algorithm and more invested than I. I accept I am a pawn in this game. Notes is more annoying than a concern to me. I've tried it a few times and think Notes is not a fit for me. Substack is a creative outlet for me and a way to stay in touch with several hundred customers and friends. Nothing more. Im riding a train w Substack and don't know the operator or where they get the repair parts or how management treats the employees at the trains home office..The train takes me from point A to point B. Not much more. Five years from this probably won't concern you at the level it does today. I'm 65. When you talk about the next 2 decades that's all I've got left in this journey! I do hope you return on Substack I am concerned that if you do return in some format I will know it and find you in this huge mess....
Paul -- Thanks for all of the great points you make here. A while ago I wrote a lighthearted post about recency bias -- our tendency to like the last movie we saw or last pizza we ate. Harmless and funny but worth, perhaps, knowing about.
I have many people I am close to who are just fine with SM. I am confident I will spend 2-3 weeks still reading Substack and figure out how I can minimize the parts of Substack I don't want to be a part of. No matter what I will continue to write, I merely have to figure out the way to maximize my enjoyment. I hope it will be on Substack, if not, so be it. I think by largely unsubscribing and just checking on the stuff I want to read that will be good enough. The subset of writers who restrict interaction to subscribers or pay-only I can evaluate on a case-by-case basis.
Your examples are great as they will help me work this out for me.
I hope when you return you will find a newer better Substack. Notes to me is a low rent Twitter. That said, it can be useful in terms of gaining new subscribers, having positive interactions with fellow writers and discovering new stackers. I’ve only been here since Feb. Ask me again in a year. 😉 All the best to you.
Thanks for a positive take. We all end up with a worldview regardless of religious or political tradition. We also carry the baggage of what we have witnessed before. While it doesn't sound particularly romantic or edifying, I have always enjoyed a comfortable space with mathematics as a reasonable way to interpret the world. I'm sure that sounds very boring to LOTS OF PEOPLE.
Be assured when I am with family, my myriad circles of friends I keep those thoughts at bay. I don't want to be set aside by my family circle, my tennis circle, my reading circle, my writing circle, my scotch club circle, my genealogy circle. Each of them is an awesome place to be and we adjust accordingly (or they cease to be a circle).
My burden in this case is I have a pretty firm understanding of how such things as Social Media model the world. They do not "just see where the algorithm takes us" but rather are designed with a target behavior to converge on. We don't get to control our lives, it does not work that way. We do, however, get to guide our own direction. For me, despite those circles being ENORMOUS in the past, I stepped away from FB and Twitter b/c of the change they imposed on me. I also realize lots of people get a lot out of being there and that is okay! I even believe there may be some (and perhaps many) that do quite well on SM.
I read your newish Substack and have enjoyed what I have seen. In a tribute to how our minds work, we can adapt to ALMOST ANYTHING with a bit of thought. I know, for example, not to look at your early archive. Almost every new Substack I discover and consider, send me to the very beginning of their journey so I can read "the origin story". Lots of your early stuff happens to be inaccessible. No big deal, I now just read your new stuff as I see it. Loved your manic journey to not miss out on the change of seasons.
Thx for this thoughtful response. Regarding math— it’s an international language. Not boring at all. I hear you regarding algorithms and SM. Algorithms to me are like a computerized group think. Being mindful of this helps. PS my archived pieces are behind a paywall. Has it encouraged people to become a paid subscriber? I don’t think so. I have one fan favorite in Medium and will probably post links to other pieces on LinkedIn, Twitter, IG and Notes. All in the name of marketing.
Hope to see you down the road. Good luck with your Substack. My sense is Substack tried to create a new and unique place where Readers might meet Writers in its original vision. It is a fantastic and enjoyable model but perhaps not sustainable. Maybe SM is necessary to create a viral secondary revenue stream. Do you write under the same name on Medium. It is one of the places I might explore if I remain uncomfortable with Notes.
Yes, my pen name is CK Steefel. Medium is more article-y, less personal essay and fiction. They have a different payment structure that I'm still trying to understand. You pay Medium $5 per month and the popular posts earn from their pot? Something like that. Maybe I'm wrong. I posted on there in the hopes of gaining more subscribers. I got 1. But then again, I didn't spend much time there. Another writer told me the key to get more followers is to follow first which seems to be the natural procedure of Substack.
Thank you for this, which touches on some things I, too, have been struggling with since the Reign Of Notes began. I loathe an activity feed. Best wishes to you in your thinking and writing.
Denise -- Thank you for reading AND commenting. I want to stress the great possibility I am wrong and misunderstand Notes. That is possible and is why I am stepping back to experiment and understand better. While it might make me seem full of s#^$, I genuinely do care whether just sharing my writing with people kind enough to subscribe or just read might be imposing a whole bunch of garbage on them. That is just a system I do not wish to be a part of. Again it might seem insincere, but I GENUINELY plan, if my conclusion of this experiment drives me there to ENCOURAGE my Subscribers to Unsubscribe. In those circumstances I would be GLAD to send them an email with a link to my posts if it reduces their noise. I have no plans to be a paid subscription so if I can retain a place for folks to read and comment that is more than enough for me, even if it means I might have to forward an email once a week BCC to people with kindness and interest. I am also aware that my writing might not be a big loss for most but for me it is important to explore my voice.
Replying to Sea who posted to Notes. Consistent with my POV that Notes is dilution, here is Sea's comment which I thought to be great and thoughtful:
I agree. It is a “red flag.” With the introduction of “notes,“ I feel I’m treading a well worn path. I’ve had to turn off my notifications just to think. I said I would post 52 original songs over the same amount of weeks, so I will keep my promise. But, in the short time I’ve been with Substack, they’ve added “chat,” and now “notes.” These changes are worrying, as it pushes more and more writers towards “paid subscriptions only” to silence the beast, which, I feel, is the intent of the founders.
In a perfect world they might veer back towards more personal interactions, but going back…?
Once again, I feel like an old timer, in wish of a pencil, paper, and the taste of a stamp. I need a walk to my mailbox; it is there I’ll raise the only “red flag” I KNOW someone will notice.
Sea -- thank you for subscribing, reading and commenting. I prefer to keep my interaction inside the Newsletter. If you would prefer I remove this just advise.
Mine is just an experiment. For me an experiment is always best because the easiest thing is to shout and complain before consideration and contemplation. The next two weeks are a gift on a goal to a settled mind. I have been on Substack for a while and LOVE IT in many ways. I loved when they added Podcasts. I loved when they added Chats. I use neither but that doesn't mean the option available is not a wonderful thing. Both of these wonderful additions were OPTIONAL. Notes is fundamentally different and that is NOT opinion. Notes is MANDATORY and that, all by itself makes it very different. I remember WAY BACK WHEN, Google had an application called Google+ which was billed as their Social Media. I ignored it because I did not wish for my persona on each of their other wonderful applications I might use to cloud my experience in using it. I believe when you wrap Social Media as a MANDATORY component of whatever your mainstream application is, that is not a good thing. All encompassing solutions like Meta and now the seeming path of Twitter as an "everything" application with a SCREAMING social component does not seem positive to me. My hope is the means to detach at some level from Notes while enjoying the endearing goodness of Substack is my hope.
Oof, to end on Jim Morrison! And that song. What a lot of memories it evokes.
As I think I said in an email, I'll miss your responses but am actually grateful that you're engaging in this experiment for the rest of our sakes. "The decisions of the Substack founders and the behavior of the users and most importantly the CONSCIOUS CHANGES leadership enforces in the algorithm will dictate what sort of place Substack will become." I agree with this. I am using a lot of extra energy even avoiding looking at Notes, but its existence and integration still affects me and what I write and how. We're all interdependent in this world.
While likely weird and quirky to many, I am looking forward to the next two weeks! I can't think of many things I enjoy more than creating an experiment and accumulating the results. I don't know what I will find and that makes now the best part of what's ahead. Experiments are truly wonderful to me. I KNOW I have biases as that is the human condition. The great part of this is I must wait and not jump to conclusions and see where the data takes me. For me this is part of desiring a settled mind. I will read your next post as a subscriber. I will see what reading and commenting does to my feed. I will then unsubscribe and seek out your next post. The difference will help me understand that I am calling the Substack Notes tax will incur on me. That can inform me on how I can peacefully continue to enjoy Substack.
For most of my favorite Substackers, they probably consider me CRAZY that I only Subscribe to 10 while reading between 30-40. Who knows, maybe the answer will be to continue writing, give people the option AND encouragement to UNSUBSCRIBE and just email them a link separately. That can be tricky but could work with the right email settings and allow people to read AND get a little less noise. This wouldn't work for paid but I don't care at this point anyhow.
I told another writer friend this a while back--I've been contracted with Medium 4 times ever since they launched. Each time, it was a good experience until they pivoted and then things went south. It taught me not to invest too much of my writing energy into the platform, and to take care of the writing itself first.
I've been downloading my writing for a while. I hope to write for the CommonEarth platform but that is quite premature at this point. I've been assembling different posts into more cohesive long-form stuff more on the order of 10000 - 20000 words. I LOVE Substack mostly for the authors I have come to know.
Thanks Anne -- I am prone to repeat myself. I expanded on what I'll be doing the next couple of weeks in my response to Antonia and Jillian -- I will do similarly with your Substack over your next two posts. I love a good experiment and expect to find a way to coexist. If not, I will build a backup plan. Always appreciate your comments and of course the joy of Cafe Anne.
Since you mentioned lizard vs front you might enjoy -- before social media the method to monitor us and drive behavior was in T&C -- remember how long a credit card or phone bill used to be? Lots of small print which was driven to drive DEFFAULT BEHAVIOR on the likelihood most everyone will never adjust. Each time I use an application I often look at decisions companies make to drive default behavior. That is is the surest path to discern motive. Substack just offered some wonderful new template options. They are great. They included default behavior about who can like and comment. This could just be an innocent error on their part. The platform is wonderful and has been refined positively for a long time. I tend to assume the default behaviors they choose are INTENTIONAL to drive behavior. That is how algorithms work and converge to where designers wish them to go without ever the inconvenience of true opt-in. The new checkbox to replicate comments to Notes is so convenient and will undboubtedly drive dilution.
I was alerted to this by a comment from Michael E on a comment thread about filtering and restricting likes and comments to paid subscribers. This makes great sense for paid newsletters especially!!! -- I think Michael E surmised it was a mistake that will be corrected. To remain lighthearted I laughed as I have now seen pictures of dogs and cats and food plates on Notes. Based upon my subscriptions, I am not reading many dog/cat/food newsletters so my love of pets and food must be part of my internal profile now :)
Thanks Jeannine -- I want to write. I want to read discovered content on Substack. I don't want to have social media dilute those things -- hope to figure it out.
As I said when you first brought the Notes issue up, I just ignore them. I hope that you can find a way to work around the stuff you don't like so you can continue to write and read. I suspect that if you unsubscribe from everything and just use bookmarks or something to check on your favorite writers, you'll find a lot less noise making it's way into your email box. Anyway, I hope you can figure out a way to continue to write on Substack, despite the social media contamination.
If you read my comment feedback to my subscriptions, you will see that is what I hope to do. I am also sensitive to understand how much noise I impose on my subscribers as I don't want to be a party to that if it can be avoided.
The silly and addictive nature of SM is on display. Would be hard to imagine a more clear post pro-Newsletter and anti-Note -- even with that, restacks and other nonsense even from this post!!! -- hahaha -- working example of the challenge to impulse control we all think we aren't being manipulated.
Thanks Jillian, the feeling is mutual. This is a longish response because I didn't want to overdo it in the post. Skip if you wish.
My goals are (1) to write (2) to continue reading stuff I love on Substack without diversion or dilution -- I hope my experiments that are consistent with mgmt claims about Notes work out. Didn't see a way to understand the target goal of the algorithm without just changing one thing at a time. We are all burdened by our past in different ways. A career in control system and algorithm design make me hypersensitive to what I consider negative consequences to people when they are being redirected to do something unconsciously just to capture their eyeballs.
Substack, in the beginning, was never anything like this. They made it incredibly easy to engage in things consciously and that is what likely made me love it.
We will see. After this post settles out I will read the next subscribed post delivery from my subscriptions (like yours) and see how that post affects Notes and the noise. That should be easy and straighforward since I ALWAYS engage and comment on each of my Subscriptions. For me, my case might be unusual as I read about 40 Substacks but only subscribe to <10. Therefore, once I stop posting I should be able to see the impact on the Notes noise when I comment on something I do not subscribe to.
Then I will unsubscribe and see how the release of the same Newsletter affects my feed. That will give me about 10 before and after impacts on Notes to observe changing only my Subscription status. Within about a week I will have no formal subscriptions. The good thing about that will be I will have a pretty good sense of how much noise Substack WILL IMPOSE on casual readers -- I liken it to a subscription tax. I, like many people might have subscribers we know personally. In their case this can help me understand how much extra noise I impose on them by being a subscriber. For me, I don't want to be the reason they get bombarded and hope they do not. My threshold for this is low as I don't want to be part of hooking them into something they may not really want in the first place!
Management claims the only driver for our Notes feed is our subscriptions. This should help answer whether that is true or false. You will get an unsubscribe AFTER your next post on Monday so I can see the difference in behavior for your Substack. It seems by doing this for each subscription I will get a sense of how much noise comes along for the ride by subscribing.
I am hopeful that the Substacks I read but don't Subscribe will indeed not contribute to the noise. There seems a lot of momentum for barriers to like, comment, etal for unpaid subscribers on some Substacks. I think such default settings imposed by Substack are natural next steps. The goal of all algorithms is always to feed as much data as possible so it can converge to the math goal that Substack sets for it. This is particularly why I react negatively when I read people saying "it is up to us what this SM becomes" -- that betrays a misunderstand of algorithms which are designed to converge to the goal the DESIGNER sets not the USER.
I am hopeful Substack will make thoughtful decisions. Most algorithms use default behavior to drive goals as people are unlikely to change defaults. I noted that Substack recently made adjustments to DEFAULT allowance for likes and comments to PAID SUBSCRIPTIONS -- this is the sort of default behavior one chooses to drive behavior. Those might be the ones I will just have to stop reading I guess. The weird thing to me is such a leverage point Substack is perhaps choosing to punish a subscriber with more noise. I hope that is not the case but perhaps makes business sense for the platform. It seems possible as this is the first time Substack has introduced a feature AND made it mandatory. My exposure to algorithm design and the mandatory nature of Notes was the alarm bell that brought this on for me.
Larger applications like Meta do exactly this by mixing the pool of FB/IG/FBM/WhatsApp activity and trains the algorithm with more data so that one application choice includes everything they know about you. This way someone who doesn't even read a Newsletter but likes to play on Notes and maybe just likes SM can affect subscribers who just like to read, comment and vice versa. Committed readers and subscribers, meanwhile through the mandatory nature of Notes get a tempting checkbox to amplify their comments on something they read to a much larger pool of people who just like to follow and add pictures of their lunch. Maybe they see this as a feature.
As a practical matter, your Substack and a handful of others are largely the reason I am here. I love that I explore writing but get genuine joy from reading some of the great things like Noted. That is why I am trying to be methodical and figure out if I can coexist and be comfortable with the noise I might now be imposing on people who read my Substack. I am not comfortable with the idea that I am taxing my readers.
Thanks for the fabulous analysis. I'm having a complicated reaction to the Notes thing too. The first few days felt great. But then the whole 'my opinion is right and yours is wrong' thing seemed to have kicked in, which is unawesome.
I've enjoyed reading and chatting to you in a bunch of different comments sections. I like how you think and hope you find a way to navigate it all in a way that works for you.
The brain stuff was fascinating. All the best to you and yours.
Thanks Medha. I have enjoyed getting to know different people like yourself and it has been a joy. I realize without knowing the details of how Substack thrives, perhaps Social Media is the best approach to growing the business. In this early phase, organic growth of the readers and writers and a place to meet in the middle was fun. It may just be for viability, more ways to generate interest are needed. Before i decided to step back, I made a chart of pros and cons. I also realize that maybe my aversion to SM is somewhat unique and maybe I am the one who needs to be more flexible. After reading your comment (and the ones b4 on this thread, I look at my list and zero in on what I am thinking. Maybe SM is simply the sales tax necessary on all of us to keep it going. I can be okay with that. What I also want to understand is how much noise to I impose on others -- keeping myself in the writing and the comments was something that was okay with me. The dilution I am not so sure about.
I am now firmly in the corner that everything begins with thought and it is inside our head. The impulsive stuff we CANNOT CHANGE nor should we. How we treat random thoughts on arrival is a different matter. It is work at times to let things simmer or just pass through. Anything important needs our conscious effort to set aside the impulse. I'm hoping two weeks makes it all make sense.
Mark, I had a chance to go to Walden Pond in Massachusetts last year. Thoreau cleared his mind by going to the woods for a time. In your sabbatical I hope you find that type of clarity. I looked forward to what you had to say in your Substack writings. You have great ideas to share so please keep perusing your place in this world.
Thanks Paul. For me nature is a great place to be. We've created an amazing but artificial world. I start my path through understanding the noise of Notes today. I will, without a doubt, continue to write, it is only a question of where and how. I enjoyed your snapshot of your draft folder. Mine is enormous! I put a number in front of the titles signifying my % complete -- If I feel like exploring one I can have a sense of those close to finished. As I've shared in my writing it was always about repetition and improving as only journaling, letter writing and technical writing were done a lot prior to Substack for me.
Thanks for your kind words as I sometime read my writing and just think I meander. I will continue to read your posts during my step back. In some ways my Subscriptions will join you as I am hoping the act of NOT SUBSCRIBING might be the volume control and even the mute button. I read about 35 Substacks (I checked last night). I Subscribe now to only 8 on a steady release schedule. The rest I bookmark. We willl see as I take Substack at their word that our SUBSCRIPTIONS drive our feed.
My secondary backup plan is to stay on Substack and gently encourage my readers to UNSUBSCRIBE if they prefer -- In that circumstance I could take on the forwarding task through a bit of an upgrade to my email client. In that way I could deliver my writing to those that care, they could retain the ability to comment and still receive my writing without the Social Media chatter that would accompany it originating from Substack. For those that don't mind how Substack behaves, they can remain subscribed. As long as Substack remains where they are policy-wise that could work.
It is funny b/c while I have a very large Rolodex, I never actively marketed my Substack to anyone. It has always been a onesey-twosey. I don't like the inbox invasion so I did not want to project that on others. So in about 10 days I should have zero subscriptions and not generating new content. It would seem I will have a good sense of how much noise Substack chooses to share at baseline. It would seem by dealing with the 1:MANY subscriptions I have plus the 1:MANY Subscribers I have, I can allow myself and my readers to make an informed decision on how much background noise they desire. All of this is putting the cart in front of the horse and I should not do that if my goal is a settled mind.
Good luck with your Substack. I can think of very few things more important for our world to sort out in the next two decades than how much we exercise for our physical, spiritual and emotional health coupled with what we feed the engine. Your Substack seems to focus on those important issues. Continued success and enjoy the ride.
Mark thanks for your reply. I have one more thought for you to ponder in your break From Substack. It's always amazed me how different things impact people in different ways. You read a restaurant review and one person loves it 5 stars and the next guy gives it 2 stars and says they will never go back. Same with movie reviews. My point is the Substack stuff that is troubling you intensely is not on my top 5 concerns. I know you are more knowledgeable on the algorithm and more invested than I. I accept I am a pawn in this game. Notes is more annoying than a concern to me. I've tried it a few times and think Notes is not a fit for me. Substack is a creative outlet for me and a way to stay in touch with several hundred customers and friends. Nothing more. Im riding a train w Substack and don't know the operator or where they get the repair parts or how management treats the employees at the trains home office..The train takes me from point A to point B. Not much more. Five years from this probably won't concern you at the level it does today. I'm 65. When you talk about the next 2 decades that's all I've got left in this journey! I do hope you return on Substack I am concerned that if you do return in some format I will know it and find you in this huge mess....
Paul -- Thanks for all of the great points you make here. A while ago I wrote a lighthearted post about recency bias -- our tendency to like the last movie we saw or last pizza we ate. Harmless and funny but worth, perhaps, knowing about.
I have many people I am close to who are just fine with SM. I am confident I will spend 2-3 weeks still reading Substack and figure out how I can minimize the parts of Substack I don't want to be a part of. No matter what I will continue to write, I merely have to figure out the way to maximize my enjoyment. I hope it will be on Substack, if not, so be it. I think by largely unsubscribing and just checking on the stuff I want to read that will be good enough. The subset of writers who restrict interaction to subscribers or pay-only I can evaluate on a case-by-case basis.
Your examples are great as they will help me work this out for me.
I hope when you return you will find a newer better Substack. Notes to me is a low rent Twitter. That said, it can be useful in terms of gaining new subscribers, having positive interactions with fellow writers and discovering new stackers. I’ve only been here since Feb. Ask me again in a year. 😉 All the best to you.
Thanks for a positive take. We all end up with a worldview regardless of religious or political tradition. We also carry the baggage of what we have witnessed before. While it doesn't sound particularly romantic or edifying, I have always enjoyed a comfortable space with mathematics as a reasonable way to interpret the world. I'm sure that sounds very boring to LOTS OF PEOPLE.
Be assured when I am with family, my myriad circles of friends I keep those thoughts at bay. I don't want to be set aside by my family circle, my tennis circle, my reading circle, my writing circle, my scotch club circle, my genealogy circle. Each of them is an awesome place to be and we adjust accordingly (or they cease to be a circle).
My burden in this case is I have a pretty firm understanding of how such things as Social Media model the world. They do not "just see where the algorithm takes us" but rather are designed with a target behavior to converge on. We don't get to control our lives, it does not work that way. We do, however, get to guide our own direction. For me, despite those circles being ENORMOUS in the past, I stepped away from FB and Twitter b/c of the change they imposed on me. I also realize lots of people get a lot out of being there and that is okay! I even believe there may be some (and perhaps many) that do quite well on SM.
I read your newish Substack and have enjoyed what I have seen. In a tribute to how our minds work, we can adapt to ALMOST ANYTHING with a bit of thought. I know, for example, not to look at your early archive. Almost every new Substack I discover and consider, send me to the very beginning of their journey so I can read "the origin story". Lots of your early stuff happens to be inaccessible. No big deal, I now just read your new stuff as I see it. Loved your manic journey to not miss out on the change of seasons.
Thx for this thoughtful response. Regarding math— it’s an international language. Not boring at all. I hear you regarding algorithms and SM. Algorithms to me are like a computerized group think. Being mindful of this helps. PS my archived pieces are behind a paywall. Has it encouraged people to become a paid subscriber? I don’t think so. I have one fan favorite in Medium and will probably post links to other pieces on LinkedIn, Twitter, IG and Notes. All in the name of marketing.
Hope to see you down the road. Good luck with your Substack. My sense is Substack tried to create a new and unique place where Readers might meet Writers in its original vision. It is a fantastic and enjoyable model but perhaps not sustainable. Maybe SM is necessary to create a viral secondary revenue stream. Do you write under the same name on Medium. It is one of the places I might explore if I remain uncomfortable with Notes.
Yes, my pen name is CK Steefel. Medium is more article-y, less personal essay and fiction. They have a different payment structure that I'm still trying to understand. You pay Medium $5 per month and the popular posts earn from their pot? Something like that. Maybe I'm wrong. I posted on there in the hopes of gaining more subscribers. I got 1. But then again, I didn't spend much time there. Another writer told me the key to get more followers is to follow first which seems to be the natural procedure of Substack.
Thank you for this, which touches on some things I, too, have been struggling with since the Reign Of Notes began. I loathe an activity feed. Best wishes to you in your thinking and writing.
Denise -- Thank you for reading AND commenting. I want to stress the great possibility I am wrong and misunderstand Notes. That is possible and is why I am stepping back to experiment and understand better. While it might make me seem full of s#^$, I genuinely do care whether just sharing my writing with people kind enough to subscribe or just read might be imposing a whole bunch of garbage on them. That is just a system I do not wish to be a part of. Again it might seem insincere, but I GENUINELY plan, if my conclusion of this experiment drives me there to ENCOURAGE my Subscribers to Unsubscribe. In those circumstances I would be GLAD to send them an email with a link to my posts if it reduces their noise. I have no plans to be a paid subscription so if I can retain a place for folks to read and comment that is more than enough for me, even if it means I might have to forward an email once a week BCC to people with kindness and interest. I am also aware that my writing might not be a big loss for most but for me it is important to explore my voice.
Replying to Sea who posted to Notes. Consistent with my POV that Notes is dilution, here is Sea's comment which I thought to be great and thoughtful:
I agree. It is a “red flag.” With the introduction of “notes,“ I feel I’m treading a well worn path. I’ve had to turn off my notifications just to think. I said I would post 52 original songs over the same amount of weeks, so I will keep my promise. But, in the short time I’ve been with Substack, they’ve added “chat,” and now “notes.” These changes are worrying, as it pushes more and more writers towards “paid subscriptions only” to silence the beast, which, I feel, is the intent of the founders.
In a perfect world they might veer back towards more personal interactions, but going back…?
Once again, I feel like an old timer, in wish of a pencil, paper, and the taste of a stamp. I need a walk to my mailbox; it is there I’ll raise the only “red flag” I KNOW someone will notice.
Sea -- thank you for subscribing, reading and commenting. I prefer to keep my interaction inside the Newsletter. If you would prefer I remove this just advise.
Mine is just an experiment. For me an experiment is always best because the easiest thing is to shout and complain before consideration and contemplation. The next two weeks are a gift on a goal to a settled mind. I have been on Substack for a while and LOVE IT in many ways. I loved when they added Podcasts. I loved when they added Chats. I use neither but that doesn't mean the option available is not a wonderful thing. Both of these wonderful additions were OPTIONAL. Notes is fundamentally different and that is NOT opinion. Notes is MANDATORY and that, all by itself makes it very different. I remember WAY BACK WHEN, Google had an application called Google+ which was billed as their Social Media. I ignored it because I did not wish for my persona on each of their other wonderful applications I might use to cloud my experience in using it. I believe when you wrap Social Media as a MANDATORY component of whatever your mainstream application is, that is not a good thing. All encompassing solutions like Meta and now the seeming path of Twitter as an "everything" application with a SCREAMING social component does not seem positive to me. My hope is the means to detach at some level from Notes while enjoying the endearing goodness of Substack is my hope.
Oof, to end on Jim Morrison! And that song. What a lot of memories it evokes.
As I think I said in an email, I'll miss your responses but am actually grateful that you're engaging in this experiment for the rest of our sakes. "The decisions of the Substack founders and the behavior of the users and most importantly the CONSCIOUS CHANGES leadership enforces in the algorithm will dictate what sort of place Substack will become." I agree with this. I am using a lot of extra energy even avoiding looking at Notes, but its existence and integration still affects me and what I write and how. We're all interdependent in this world.
Keep in touch now and then!
While likely weird and quirky to many, I am looking forward to the next two weeks! I can't think of many things I enjoy more than creating an experiment and accumulating the results. I don't know what I will find and that makes now the best part of what's ahead. Experiments are truly wonderful to me. I KNOW I have biases as that is the human condition. The great part of this is I must wait and not jump to conclusions and see where the data takes me. For me this is part of desiring a settled mind. I will read your next post as a subscriber. I will see what reading and commenting does to my feed. I will then unsubscribe and seek out your next post. The difference will help me understand that I am calling the Substack Notes tax will incur on me. That can inform me on how I can peacefully continue to enjoy Substack.
Looking forward to seeing the results!
For most of my favorite Substackers, they probably consider me CRAZY that I only Subscribe to 10 while reading between 30-40. Who knows, maybe the answer will be to continue writing, give people the option AND encouragement to UNSUBSCRIBE and just email them a link separately. That can be tricky but could work with the right email settings and allow people to read AND get a little less noise. This wouldn't work for paid but I don't care at this point anyhow.
I hear you.
I told another writer friend this a while back--I've been contracted with Medium 4 times ever since they launched. Each time, it was a good experience until they pivoted and then things went south. It taught me not to invest too much of my writing energy into the platform, and to take care of the writing itself first.
I've been downloading my writing for a while. I hope to write for the CommonEarth platform but that is quite premature at this point. I've been assembling different posts into more cohesive long-form stuff more on the order of 10000 - 20000 words. I LOVE Substack mostly for the authors I have come to know.
Same! It's been a bit of a refuge but also I've gotten to meet new people and learn a ton.
Mark! I love your reflections on how different platforms are based on lizard brain vs front brain.
I will miss you on Substack and am hoping for your return. :)
Thanks Anne -- I am prone to repeat myself. I expanded on what I'll be doing the next couple of weeks in my response to Antonia and Jillian -- I will do similarly with your Substack over your next two posts. I love a good experiment and expect to find a way to coexist. If not, I will build a backup plan. Always appreciate your comments and of course the joy of Cafe Anne.
Since you mentioned lizard vs front you might enjoy -- before social media the method to monitor us and drive behavior was in T&C -- remember how long a credit card or phone bill used to be? Lots of small print which was driven to drive DEFFAULT BEHAVIOR on the likelihood most everyone will never adjust. Each time I use an application I often look at decisions companies make to drive default behavior. That is is the surest path to discern motive. Substack just offered some wonderful new template options. They are great. They included default behavior about who can like and comment. This could just be an innocent error on their part. The platform is wonderful and has been refined positively for a long time. I tend to assume the default behaviors they choose are INTENTIONAL to drive behavior. That is how algorithms work and converge to where designers wish them to go without ever the inconvenience of true opt-in. The new checkbox to replicate comments to Notes is so convenient and will undboubtedly drive dilution.
I haven't looked at the new templates yet Mark. It will be interesting to give them a gander from the perspective you outlined.
I was alerted to this by a comment from Michael E on a comment thread about filtering and restricting likes and comments to paid subscribers. This makes great sense for paid newsletters especially!!! -- I think Michael E surmised it was a mistake that will be corrected. To remain lighthearted I laughed as I have now seen pictures of dogs and cats and food plates on Notes. Based upon my subscriptions, I am not reading many dog/cat/food newsletters so my love of pets and food must be part of my internal profile now :)
I'll miss you. Take care. Hope to see you around...
Thanks Jeannine -- I want to write. I want to read discovered content on Substack. I don't want to have social media dilute those things -- hope to figure it out.
As I said when you first brought the Notes issue up, I just ignore them. I hope that you can find a way to work around the stuff you don't like so you can continue to write and read. I suspect that if you unsubscribe from everything and just use bookmarks or something to check on your favorite writers, you'll find a lot less noise making it's way into your email box. Anyway, I hope you can figure out a way to continue to write on Substack, despite the social media contamination.
If you read my comment feedback to my subscriptions, you will see that is what I hope to do. I am also sensitive to understand how much noise I impose on my subscribers as I don't want to be a party to that if it can be avoided.
I'll be very interested in the results of your experiments. Thank you for doing this!
The silly and addictive nature of SM is on display. Would be hard to imagine a more clear post pro-Newsletter and anti-Note -- even with that, restacks and other nonsense even from this post!!! -- hahaha -- working example of the challenge to impulse control we all think we aren't being manipulated.
Of course, I hope you’ll stay, but I completely understand your decision. I’m still sorting out how I feel about Notes.
JILLIAN! So surprised to hear you are "sorting." I feel like you've had such an amazing year!
Thanks, Anne! I have! But notes is so overwhelming! I still love Substack.
Haha Jillians I got Notes confused with Noted. 🙄
Easy mistake 😂
I agree ANNE -- I can't think of a Substack on a better trajectory and a never miss in my reading list than "Noted"
Thanks Jillian, the feeling is mutual. This is a longish response because I didn't want to overdo it in the post. Skip if you wish.
My goals are (1) to write (2) to continue reading stuff I love on Substack without diversion or dilution -- I hope my experiments that are consistent with mgmt claims about Notes work out. Didn't see a way to understand the target goal of the algorithm without just changing one thing at a time. We are all burdened by our past in different ways. A career in control system and algorithm design make me hypersensitive to what I consider negative consequences to people when they are being redirected to do something unconsciously just to capture their eyeballs.
Substack, in the beginning, was never anything like this. They made it incredibly easy to engage in things consciously and that is what likely made me love it.
We will see. After this post settles out I will read the next subscribed post delivery from my subscriptions (like yours) and see how that post affects Notes and the noise. That should be easy and straighforward since I ALWAYS engage and comment on each of my Subscriptions. For me, my case might be unusual as I read about 40 Substacks but only subscribe to <10. Therefore, once I stop posting I should be able to see the impact on the Notes noise when I comment on something I do not subscribe to.
Then I will unsubscribe and see how the release of the same Newsletter affects my feed. That will give me about 10 before and after impacts on Notes to observe changing only my Subscription status. Within about a week I will have no formal subscriptions. The good thing about that will be I will have a pretty good sense of how much noise Substack WILL IMPOSE on casual readers -- I liken it to a subscription tax. I, like many people might have subscribers we know personally. In their case this can help me understand how much extra noise I impose on them by being a subscriber. For me, I don't want to be the reason they get bombarded and hope they do not. My threshold for this is low as I don't want to be part of hooking them into something they may not really want in the first place!
Management claims the only driver for our Notes feed is our subscriptions. This should help answer whether that is true or false. You will get an unsubscribe AFTER your next post on Monday so I can see the difference in behavior for your Substack. It seems by doing this for each subscription I will get a sense of how much noise comes along for the ride by subscribing.
I am hopeful that the Substacks I read but don't Subscribe will indeed not contribute to the noise. There seems a lot of momentum for barriers to like, comment, etal for unpaid subscribers on some Substacks. I think such default settings imposed by Substack are natural next steps. The goal of all algorithms is always to feed as much data as possible so it can converge to the math goal that Substack sets for it. This is particularly why I react negatively when I read people saying "it is up to us what this SM becomes" -- that betrays a misunderstand of algorithms which are designed to converge to the goal the DESIGNER sets not the USER.
I am hopeful Substack will make thoughtful decisions. Most algorithms use default behavior to drive goals as people are unlikely to change defaults. I noted that Substack recently made adjustments to DEFAULT allowance for likes and comments to PAID SUBSCRIPTIONS -- this is the sort of default behavior one chooses to drive behavior. Those might be the ones I will just have to stop reading I guess. The weird thing to me is such a leverage point Substack is perhaps choosing to punish a subscriber with more noise. I hope that is not the case but perhaps makes business sense for the platform. It seems possible as this is the first time Substack has introduced a feature AND made it mandatory. My exposure to algorithm design and the mandatory nature of Notes was the alarm bell that brought this on for me.
Larger applications like Meta do exactly this by mixing the pool of FB/IG/FBM/WhatsApp activity and trains the algorithm with more data so that one application choice includes everything they know about you. This way someone who doesn't even read a Newsletter but likes to play on Notes and maybe just likes SM can affect subscribers who just like to read, comment and vice versa. Committed readers and subscribers, meanwhile through the mandatory nature of Notes get a tempting checkbox to amplify their comments on something they read to a much larger pool of people who just like to follow and add pictures of their lunch. Maybe they see this as a feature.
As a practical matter, your Substack and a handful of others are largely the reason I am here. I love that I explore writing but get genuine joy from reading some of the great things like Noted. That is why I am trying to be methodical and figure out if I can coexist and be comfortable with the noise I might now be imposing on people who read my Substack. I am not comfortable with the idea that I am taxing my readers.
This is fascinating! Going to have to come back & re-read when I have time