There is a lot I like about Substack: the ease with which you can set up a newsletter, the fact that you don’t pay anything if you don’t make any money, the way it facilitates recommending and subscribing to emails.
But what I really do not like about it is the way it makes me care about “likes” , the number of comments on articles, and “subscribes”.
I am no doubt using the wrong word when I say it “makes” me care about those things. After all, I have agency, and I have free choice. Nevertheless, I care about them in a way I never have in my other newsletters.
For example, although I have gained thousands of subscribers to my education and writing newsletters over the years, I’ve never bothered too much to look at the statistics, such as open rate. I know I probably should, but for the most part I have tended to look only when a would-be advertiser asks me. And given that I decided a few years ago not to take any more advertising, because I became fed up with companies that were much larger than mine trying to rip me off (and in some cases succeeding), it didn’t seem worth bothering about any more.
Years ago I disabled comments on those newsletters for two reasons. Firstly, it was just too tedious dealing with spam. Secondly, I didn’t like receiving nasty comments. That didn’t happen often, but even once is ennough. I decided to take the view that if you want to leave nasty comments, do so in your own blog or newsletter rather than pollute mine. (Fortunately, my experience in these respects has been very positive on Substack.)
So, the upshot is, I do not spend time looking at open rates and click-through rates, and nobody can comment on my posts, so in theory I could be writing thousands of words a year that are read by nobody.
However, I don’t mind, because I like to think I’m creating a useful resource that people can access whenever they like. It is true that some of my articles have dated because the terminology has changed or the government initiative in question has died, but all the principles of the issues I have discussed are still relevent, and will probably remain so for a very long time.
Also, I know that my articles are read because of the way they are referred to every so often. For example, I was at a conference a few years ago and someobody said, in a discussion group, “Well, as Terry Freedman said…”. They went on to quote something I had written about seven years before and on which nobody had commented at the time.
Another example: some years ago I went for a high-powered job. Two of us were called to the final interview, which was based on a scenario exercise. The person who beat me said she based her answer to the scenario question on the solution I’d suggested in my Digital Education newsletter the week before — and which I’d forgotten about!
But on Substack I find myself thinking, “Why has this post received only two likes?” “Why has this Note received no likes at all?” “Why hasn’t anyone left a comment yet”? “Why don’t I have as many subscribers as so-and-so?”
I am sure it is because of the relentless push to gain more and more subscribers. Obviously, more subscribers, and more paying subscribers, would be nice. But all that internal “noise” doesn’t make for a peaceful and contented life