My name is Philipp and you are reading Creativerly, the internet corner where I unpack my musings, curate and write about noteworthy apps and software, and explore the latest trends in design and tech.

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I wrote about Substack multiple times, either within those intro sections of the newsletter or in posts like The best Substack alternatives, and Why I moved my newsletter from Substack to Ghost. And now I am doing it again, since it seems as important as ever to encourage independent writers to truly become independently. Recently, Substack raised a $100 million series C funding round led by the Cherning Group and BOND, valuing the platform at $1.1 billion, while it is "only" generating about $45 million in annual recurring revenue according to a post by Eric Newcomer (to which I am not linking on purpose, since it is on Substack) which is just pure insanity and stupidity.

Since its existence, Substack's promise has been that they let writers focus on what only matters, which is simply writing. The fundamental and fatal flow here is that, if you want to become an independent writer creating revenue to support your writing and reporting, you have to think about the business side of your writing. Substack, however, want you to believe that if you are an independent writer, you are a writer, and not a business owner, and Substack, the platform, is responsible for your audience and your growth.

This is bullshit, like serious bullshit.

It is fascinating how so many people think saying things like "Check out my Substack" is in any way beneficial as they are all calling their creative work by Substack's brand name. I mean, at that point it should be clear to you that you have not build any kind of independent publication, you just created an account on a platform that controls your audience and distribution.

If you want to read more about Substack's new valuation and what it means for independent media, I highly recommend checking out Lex Roman's post "Why Substack's new valuation means a monopoly is brewing" published at Journalists Pay Themselves. Besides that, I also wrote a post about the question whether independent writers actually have a choice when it comes to the tools and platforms to build an independent publication, and why writers are still using Substack although, it is the most expensive platform, a nazi bar, a pseudo-growth-machine, bloated with disengadged bots, and simply a hell-hole of the internet.

Is there really a choice for independent writers in selecting a platform?

I am a huge fan of independent journalism and the folks who are bringing a variety of point-of-views to the media landscape. Over the course of the past couple of months and even years, legacy media organizations have been coined by multiple waves of layoffs. Besides that, employees of those organizations had to deal with employers trying to control what opinions their employees express on social media, worry about work getting published that contradicts their values, or getting fired for the opinions they are holding.

Loads of journalists went independent, building their own publications.

However, as Molly White pointed out in her remarkable piece I am my own legal department: the promise and peril of "just go independent", the world of independent journalism, or working as an independent writer is not for everyone.

What I like to call the first wave of journalists going independent, ended in multiple writers building their new "publications" on Substack. I put the term publications in quotes for a reason, since if you are using Substack, you are not building a publication, you are just setting up a temporary home on someone else's platform. More importantly, and this brings us into the present, you are building your publication on a platform that supports Nazis, and monetizes their content.

Substack's Nazi problem led to multiple journalists and independent writers leave the platform, realizing that there are loads of alternatives, some of them even provide a way better experience for both the writer and the reader. Ghost, Beehiiv, Buttondown are all solid alternatives. However, if you grew your publication on Substack to thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of subscribers, you suddenly get hit with a hefty subscription fee with those other platforms, since compared to Substack, most of them only have limited free plans (Kit's Newsletter Plan* is one of the most generous though, being free for up to 10k subscribers), but then you have to pay for a specific plan if you went over that limit.

Read the whole post here:

Is there really a choice for independent writers in selecting a platform?
Spoiler: yes, there is. Read about the ethical and financial dilemmas independent journalists face when choosing platforms like Substack.
CreativerlyPhilipp Temmel
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Fresh Updates & News

The Verge allows readers to follow their favorite topics and authors in a custom homepage feed →

The Verge is a great example of doing modern media right. They just shipped a new feature, which allow readers to follow individual topics and authors, and then read them in a custom homepage feed and through a daily email digest that is specific to each reader. To access that feature, you need to sign up for a Verge account, but this feature is available for free, no matter if you are a paying subscriber or not.

What I love about this new feature is that it feels a lot like an RSS feed or even how a social network works. And since I am a huge fan of RSS, and feeds in general, it is amazing to see how a huge publication like the The Verge transformed this aspect into their own site.

Lovely.

Guess what: people do not like AI summaries in search results →

A recent post by Pew Research Center (PRC) revealed that while Google introduced AI Overviews as a new feature last year, displaying an artificial intelligence-generated result summary at the top of many Google search pages, it seems like that Google users are less likely to clink on links when an AI summary appears in the results.

As part of the research PRC conducted, they learned that Google users who encounter an AI summary are less like to click on links to other websites than users who do not see one, and Google users are more like to end their browsing session entirely after visiting a search page with an AI summary than on pages without one.

I never understood those AI summaries, especially since they have never been valuable. Also, when I am searching through the internet (and I do not use Google for that) I do that with a certain intent, and therefore, I would never rely on a hallucinated summary some AI created for me. Besides that, I experience joy browsing through the internet and discovering things. I have never felt the burden some people describe who actually rely on getting whole websites summarized for them.

Mental Wealth

❯ The Hater's Guide To The AI Bubble – “Good journalism is making sure that history is actively captured and appropriately described and assessed, and it's accurate to describe things as they currently are as alarming. And I am alarmed.”

❯ Just One Good Thing – “Today’s culture seems to reward and celebrate the hustle. The neverending idea that one should always be productive, working, producing, shipping. At times, I’ve compared myself to peers, colleagues, and friends. Places like LinkedIn and other social media make me cringe: everyone performing in favor of being seen as someone with their shit together. Impostor syndrome strikes. On the other end, workingworkingworking results in burnout and feeling like nothing was accomplished anyway.”

❯ Is “ethical AI” an oxymoron? – “It depends on who you ask. But the current wave of generative AI has unpleasant side effects that are hard to ignore: large-scale copyright infringements, environmental impact and bias.”

❯ What Actually Makes You Resilient? – “In a world with political polarization, war, extreme weather events, and increasing costs of living, we need to be able to cope as individuals and communities. Our capacity to cope with very real stressors in our lives—our resilience—can determine whether we thrive, just survive, or are deprived of a reasonable quality of life.”

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Appendix

❯ ICYMI

The reality behind personal knowledge management: why complex productivity systems fail, how true note-taking thrives, and what remains when the hype fades. In my post Systems Over Substance, I take a critical look at the PKM landscape.

❯ Quick Bits

Till next time! 👋‌‌‌‌

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