Beyond the Subscriber List

If you look at the modern independent media landscape you see one big name dominating the conversation – Substack. In "The Glass Floor of Digital Sovereignty" I wrote about an architectural trick which Bluesky created to give the illusion of control of your data and online presence while leaving the heavy infrastructure in the hands of few corporate relays.

This exact trick is played on independent authors, journalists and writers. Substack has branded itself as the savior of independent journalism, personal writing and blogging as a whole. And the pitch is very seductive: “Write what you want, monetize your audience, and own your subscribers. If you ever want to leave, you can just take your subscriber list and walk away.”

And just like Bluesky's portable identities does Substack's promise of "ownership" sound like a victory for digital sovereignty but is just a mirage. It trades structural independence for an exit strategy and confuses data portability with true autonomy.

Cornerstone of Substack's pro-writer marketing is the ability to export the Subscriber list of your publication as a CSV file. This is on paper different than any Commercial Media or Medium, which lock exactly this data in their database.

But an list of subscriber EMail addresses doesn't make an media empire, it's static data and to use that data you'll have to face a harsh reality – you need more than just an own server where your blog/publication lives. (You can somewhat see it here what it needs.) You'll need to route your newsletter through massive commercial email infrastructure like Mailgun as else it would vanish into the SPAM folders of your subscribers or be even rejected by Google, Apple and other large mail providers.

Substack knows that as they have build exactly that massive and centralised engine. That's why they can allow publications that would be banned in most of Europe while not having to seriously improve their service.

When you use Substack, you aren't just hosting content. You are relying on an centralised intermediary – who pushes and makes money of fascist publications on it's platform – to maintain your visibility.

This is where the true power of the Open Social Web and Federation comes in. The paradigm shifts when a blog or a publication is build natively on a decentralised protocol like ActivityPub. For that you can use software like Ghost (like this blog), WriteFreely, or Wordpress with the ActivityPub Plugin.

In the Fediverse the distribution isn't tied to a singular delivery network like EMail or corporate algorithm and recommendation engine as your blog is itself an actor. It directly and actively interacts with the wider Open Social Web.

This also allows for sovereign distribution as when someone on Mastodon, Pixelfed or any other modern federated software follows your blog the communication happens on an open standard set by the W3C. No single entity can sit between your blog and their instance to demand e.g. a 15% cut of revenue or threaten a ban your domain because of an algorithm change. And if you self-host your instance or host it on a small VPS the rules of engagement will be determined by you and the people you actually interact with.

By utilizing ActivityPub for more than just microblogging or to post pictures we replace the fragile plumbing of EMail delivery with a resilient, decentralized web of nodes. (Which can of course also have EMail newsletter delivery as a support.)

For many writers the trade-off between convenience and digital sovereignty is maybe worth it. But it isn't a pro-writer – especially pro-journalist – platform they think it is. Substack is just another walled garden which has put signs up for the exit door to an desert.

If we truly want an resilient web that is pro-writer and pro-journalist we have to look away from the perceived convenience of centralised platforms and embrace the slightly messy but decentralised reality of the Open Social Web and the Fediverse. Stop relying upon corporations for our digital identities – even nicer ones – and let's start building on infrastructure that we can actually control.

What do you think? Is a portable CSV file enough to guarantee your independence, or do we need to abandon platforms entirely for protocols? Let's discuss it on the Fediverse. 🕸️

If you want to hear more from me you can find me in the Fediverse at @gelbphoenix@social.gelbphoenix.de (Mastodon) or @gelbphoenix@gram.social (Pixelfed). For more posts like this subscribe to my newsletter or support me by becoming a member or donating.