Substack has a good recommendations algorithm, which will hopefully recommend people other EA relevant content (this feels complementary with the thing above, where it’s facilitating some cross-flow of users between our owned channels and substack)
This same recommendation algorithm, combined with their deliberately permissive approach to moderation, is the reason why a number of prominent publications have left Substack; they don’t want to be recommended to neo-Nazis or have neo-Nazis recommended to them. Here’s Casey Newton’s full explanation, which I think is reasonable and was well-received by his largely normal, largely popular audience. Despite Substack’s popularity in these circles, I think that it is directly valuable to not have these recommendation effects, as well as indirectly valuable from an optics perspective. (Regardless, I figured you might not be aware of this controversy at all).
In the same vein as Casey, I think that you could achieve almost all of the benefits outlined in that document with a different provider, such as Ghost.
This same recommendation algorithm, combined with their deliberately permissive approach to moderation, is the reason why a number of prominent publications have left Substack; they don’t want to be recommended to neo-Nazis or have neo-Nazis recommended to them. Here’s Casey Newton’s full explanation, which I think is reasonable and was well-received by his largely normal, largely popular audience. Despite Substack’s popularity in these circles, I think that it is directly valuable to not have these recommendation effects, as well as indirectly valuable from an optics perspective. (Regardless, I figured you might not be aware of this controversy at all).
In the same vein as Casey, I think that you could achieve almost all of the benefits outlined in that document with a different provider, such as Ghost.