Apr 8, 2023·edited Apr 8, 2023Liked by Theo Jordan
The bad news: If there's a Taibbi/Musk rift, we all lose. No sugar-coating that.
The good news: The Twitter/Substack standoff will be seen as a stupid move on Twitter's part. Another of Elon's iterations that didn't work out, and he'll find a way to unscrew it. The man wears his heart on his sleeve, and that's not great for a CEO. He needs a Gwynne Shotwell for Twitter. Soon.
The better news. Theo will be on Substack more, and he's gonna explore some features we might not heavily use. Notes does look promising, if for nothing other than being hard on trollbots.
The best news: Theo's gonna make a run at getting paid. We're awash in paid liars. It's time to give them competition. Telling the truth has to pay better, or the USS Republic is sunk for sure. We're taking on water, a lot of water, but damage control is a thing and we may yet right the ship. All is NOT lost, the times, they can be a-changin'. But only if we do the work. Theo does the work, and there needs to be a payoff for that. Time for normies to step up. If, and only if, you CAN support folks like Theo, do so.
And, find a little room for someone you might not agree with,, but that is telling you the truth anyway. Like Bari Weiss and The Free Press, as Theo mentioned. An outfit like Bari's can reach people that wouldn't give Theo the time of day. And in the end, a broad coalition will be needed to get the Truman Show cancelled. That's all there is to it.
I just found out about this last night. I don't want to pay Twitter to write longer posts (that people still have to click "read more" on to see it all), when I could be using Substack where people see the whole posts at once and pay me.
I didn't even notice the emails from Substack about notes. I may never have known about it or been interested in it, but if I'm going to be penalized on Twitter and rewarded on Substack, I'd rather go with Substack.
One thing that's weird is that the notes feature isn't even fully out, and this was a pre-emptive strike by Twitter. It is the Streisand Effect. I don't think nearly the same amount of people would be talking about it (or using it when it gets implemented) if Twitter had done nothing.
It was a bad, dumb move on Twitter's part. They're asking people to pay for the service, which is OK, they need to and deserve to make money. But then, to go out and limit the reach and quality of the platform you want people to pay for? This is so wrongity-wrong we can only conclude there's more to the story behind the scenes. It might come out, we'll see.
I saw a note from Elon on Twitter this morning that was saying that "Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1644638493883211779
That makes sense to me. But the consequences are awful. Like you said they're diminishing the quality of the platform and I certainly would never consider paying Twitter now if most of what I do on there is share my substack articles.
Yup. I just posted a substack article about it. I would normally go to Twitter to share the link. I suppose I still will in case anyone looks through my profile and previous tweets, but no one will be able to interact with it which is just crappy.
The bad news: If there's a Taibbi/Musk rift, we all lose. No sugar-coating that.
The good news: The Twitter/Substack standoff will be seen as a stupid move on Twitter's part. Another of Elon's iterations that didn't work out, and he'll find a way to unscrew it. The man wears his heart on his sleeve, and that's not great for a CEO. He needs a Gwynne Shotwell for Twitter. Soon.
The better news. Theo will be on Substack more, and he's gonna explore some features we might not heavily use. Notes does look promising, if for nothing other than being hard on trollbots.
The best news: Theo's gonna make a run at getting paid. We're awash in paid liars. It's time to give them competition. Telling the truth has to pay better, or the USS Republic is sunk for sure. We're taking on water, a lot of water, but damage control is a thing and we may yet right the ship. All is NOT lost, the times, they can be a-changin'. But only if we do the work. Theo does the work, and there needs to be a payoff for that. Time for normies to step up. If, and only if, you CAN support folks like Theo, do so.
And, find a little room for someone you might not agree with,, but that is telling you the truth anyway. Like Bari Weiss and The Free Press, as Theo mentioned. An outfit like Bari's can reach people that wouldn't give Theo the time of day. And in the end, a broad coalition will be needed to get the Truman Show cancelled. That's all there is to it.
Man!! That was brilliantly put and inspiring! Thank you for sharing that.
I just found out about this last night. I don't want to pay Twitter to write longer posts (that people still have to click "read more" on to see it all), when I could be using Substack where people see the whole posts at once and pay me.
I didn't even notice the emails from Substack about notes. I may never have known about it or been interested in it, but if I'm going to be penalized on Twitter and rewarded on Substack, I'd rather go with Substack.
One thing that's weird is that the notes feature isn't even fully out, and this was a pre-emptive strike by Twitter. It is the Streisand Effect. I don't think nearly the same amount of people would be talking about it (or using it when it gets implemented) if Twitter had done nothing.
Well said. Exact same for me. I wasn't even aware of Notes until yesterday.
It was a bad, dumb move on Twitter's part. They're asking people to pay for the service, which is OK, they need to and deserve to make money. But then, to go out and limit the reach and quality of the platform you want people to pay for? This is so wrongity-wrong we can only conclude there's more to the story behind the scenes. It might come out, we'll see.
I saw a note from Elon on Twitter this morning that was saying that "Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1644638493883211779
That makes sense to me. But the consequences are awful. Like you said they're diminishing the quality of the platform and I certainly would never consider paying Twitter now if most of what I do on there is share my substack articles.
Hadn't seen that, thank you. Behind the scenes for sure. Substack's response to Musk's contention will be interesting.
Yep, for you, it's now worth exactly $0 per month, because you can't even advertise effectively.
Yup. I just posted a substack article about it. I would normally go to Twitter to share the link. I suppose I still will in case anyone looks through my profile and previous tweets, but no one will be able to interact with it which is just crappy.