I think this was my last Substack subscription so I can finally move on. I was already on the fence before the Nazi push notification. So look forward to joining you on Ghost and I like discord more than the chat here anyway.
Sad we lose the comment section but have faith we’ll be buzzing in no time over there.
It’s amazing to hear you’re moving platforms! It was frustrating to contribute to this platform, and some of my favorite newsletters have made the exact same transition. Best of luck with the move!
I'm sorry to hear this. I loved the old AV Club reviews of Breaking Bad and was thrilled to find the latter seasons of Better Call Saul here on Substack. The quality of the writing has never wavered. You all were a good addition to my feed here and, though I won't be following you, I wish your project continued success.
I'm delighted to hear this! Along with Emily St. James, who went to Ghost a long time ago, that completes the transition of a lot of my fav TV writers off Substack. I don't know what this will mean for my own writing—which I don't do enough of to have any reason to monetize, which explains how I've justified staying—especially since most subscriptions are driven by Episodic Medium. Still, I know we've been having this discussion for ages and it feels like the right move.
I will miss the old comments though. I finished watching She-Hulk for the first time a week or two ago and had a great time going back through The Archive, and I'm super behind on Star Trek: SNW S3 and will be sad to miss out on the comments discourse of the first half of the season.
So will the Substack archive disappear? I currently just started The Gilded Age and will be watching it slowly. Can I read comments here? I was thinking I would just drop new comments on the Ghost version. I am notoriously slow getting to shows so I am just trying to figure out my strategy going forward.
My biggest beef with Substack is the app. It’s bad for me. It’s great for dropping comments but I inevitably look at Notes and lord they are dreadful.
Lynn, the short version is that I do not entirely know what happens to the archived comments at this time. It’s my biggest stress point - I don’t think they go away, but because they’re only accessible to paid subscribers, I don’t know what happens when we disconnect the payments from Substack entirely.
But... I think you have a responsibility to your readers / contributors to archive the existing comments in some way.
Even though they can't be an interactable comment section, you could preserve them as static HTML - either appended to the original post (perhaps in an accordioned section, to avoid clutter), or added a separate 'post' on ghost with a link appended to the articles. Yes, a boring job, but one that you could pay a developer to do.
The robust and thoughtful discourse is a core part of your offer to subscribers, and it's a bit of a let-down to erase that.
Congrats on getting away from Substack, I hope the move goes as smoothly as possible!
Do you know if it’s possible to set up a password to log in on Ghost? I hate the Magic Link email thing in general, but especially so in a situation like this where I share the sub with my wife, which makes that a real pain to use.
Well that would be nice. We’ll make it work if that’s how the site is.
I also sub to Today in Tabs and when they moved to Beehiiv it was Magic Link only, but eventually they added a password, so maybe that’ll happen here too.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, I’m an RSS sicko, so only needing one button to turn off the emails instead of needing to go in and hit a new button every time a show is added is actually a positive for me. I know I’m in the minority there, but hey, nice to have that work out in my favor there!
I'm very glad to hear you'll receive more money from each subscription. I also don't have any plans to cancel my membership (especially since it carried over smoothly). But I want to be honest: I am slightly discontented to her this news for a few reasons:
1) Most importantly, "https://www.episodicmedium.tv/" appears to be blocked for me at work. I guess because it's a brand new site so the firewall doesn't know what to do with it. Hopefully it gets resolved at some point because for better or worse, I usually read the site on my lunch breaks and the like. So not being able to read during the day likely will decrease my enjoyment and use of the site.
2) I definitely will miss the archived comments. Like Myles, I love getting little pings when my past comments are liked or replied to. Maybe if I feel moved to I'll try to recreate some of them on Ghost? But yes this is definitely a big loss, which of course Myles already knows about.
3) If I'm being honest I never quite understood what was so bad about Substack. Probably some willful ignorance on my part. Just felt like the classic no ethical consumption under capitalism situation.
4) Related, but since I kinda shrugged my shoulders at Substack's "badness" for lack of a better word, I do have a lot of Substack subscriptions in their ecosystem. So it'll take some getting used to. Change isn't inherently bad, but there are always some complications.
Anyway, just wanted to get this off my chest. If the new website fully worked for me then I probably would be less down on this. But for now, my enjoyment of the site definitely will be diminishing in the short term unfortunately.
And yeah, the comment piece is a loss as you know, and the thing is that it specifically is an attack on our most loyal readers/commenters. The truth is that the vast majority of comments on the site are by a small number of people, and that means this most impacts them. However, they're also the ones who can be relied on to bring the same energy to the new space.
Hmm unfortuantely not since it redirects to the .tv address instantenously. Though FWIW I can connect to the default ghost.io as well as Sepinwall's URL of: https://alansepinwall.ghost.io/.
Goodbye Substack!
I think this was my last Substack subscription so I can finally move on. I was already on the fence before the Nazi push notification. So look forward to joining you on Ghost and I like discord more than the chat here anyway.
Sad we lose the comment section but have faith we’ll be buzzing in no time over there.
Super excited for this change!
Also, never give up footnotes. They're at least 37% of the reason I'm here.
It’s amazing to hear you’re moving platforms! It was frustrating to contribute to this platform, and some of my favorite newsletters have made the exact same transition. Best of luck with the move!
I'm sorry to hear this. I loved the old AV Club reviews of Breaking Bad and was thrilled to find the latter seasons of Better Call Saul here on Substack. The quality of the writing has never wavered. You all were a good addition to my feed here and, though I won't be following you, I wish your project continued success.
I'm delighted to hear this! Along with Emily St. James, who went to Ghost a long time ago, that completes the transition of a lot of my fav TV writers off Substack. I don't know what this will mean for my own writing—which I don't do enough of to have any reason to monetize, which explains how I've justified staying—especially since most subscriptions are driven by Episodic Medium. Still, I know we've been having this discussion for ages and it feels like the right move.
I will miss the old comments though. I finished watching She-Hulk for the first time a week or two ago and had a great time going back through The Archive, and I'm super behind on Star Trek: SNW S3 and will be sad to miss out on the comments discourse of the first half of the season.
So will the Substack archive disappear? I currently just started The Gilded Age and will be watching it slowly. Can I read comments here? I was thinking I would just drop new comments on the Ghost version. I am notoriously slow getting to shows so I am just trying to figure out my strategy going forward.
My biggest beef with Substack is the app. It’s bad for me. It’s great for dropping comments but I inevitably look at Notes and lord they are dreadful.
Lynn, the short version is that I do not entirely know what happens to the archived comments at this time. It’s my biggest stress point - I don’t think they go away, but because they’re only accessible to paid subscribers, I don’t know what happens when we disconnect the payments from Substack entirely.
Well done on making the switch, Myles.
But... I think you have a responsibility to your readers / contributors to archive the existing comments in some way.
Even though they can't be an interactable comment section, you could preserve them as static HTML - either appended to the original post (perhaps in an accordioned section, to avoid clutter), or added a separate 'post' on ghost with a link appended to the articles. Yes, a boring job, but one that you could pay a developer to do.
The robust and thoughtful discourse is a core part of your offer to subscribers, and it's a bit of a let-down to erase that.
Congrats on getting away from Substack, I hope the move goes as smoothly as possible!
Do you know if it’s possible to set up a password to log in on Ghost? I hate the Magic Link email thing in general, but especially so in a situation like this where I share the sub with my wife, which makes that a real pain to use.
Oh that is extremely rude. My sense is that the log-in lasts for a while, at least?
Well that would be nice. We’ll make it work if that’s how the site is.
I also sub to Today in Tabs and when they moved to Beehiiv it was Magic Link only, but eventually they added a password, so maybe that’ll happen here too.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, I’m an RSS sicko, so only needing one button to turn off the emails instead of needing to go in and hit a new button every time a show is added is actually a positive for me. I know I’m in the minority there, but hey, nice to have that work out in my favor there!
I'm very glad to hear you'll receive more money from each subscription. I also don't have any plans to cancel my membership (especially since it carried over smoothly). But I want to be honest: I am slightly discontented to her this news for a few reasons:
1) Most importantly, "https://www.episodicmedium.tv/" appears to be blocked for me at work. I guess because it's a brand new site so the firewall doesn't know what to do with it. Hopefully it gets resolved at some point because for better or worse, I usually read the site on my lunch breaks and the like. So not being able to read during the day likely will decrease my enjoyment and use of the site.
2) I definitely will miss the archived comments. Like Myles, I love getting little pings when my past comments are liked or replied to. Maybe if I feel moved to I'll try to recreate some of them on Ghost? But yes this is definitely a big loss, which of course Myles already knows about.
3) If I'm being honest I never quite understood what was so bad about Substack. Probably some willful ignorance on my part. Just felt like the classic no ethical consumption under capitalism situation.
4) Related, but since I kinda shrugged my shoulders at Substack's "badness" for lack of a better word, I do have a lot of Substack subscriptions in their ecosystem. So it'll take some getting used to. Change isn't inherently bad, but there are always some complications.
Anyway, just wanted to get this off my chest. If the new website fully worked for me then I probably would be less down on this. But for now, my enjoyment of the site definitely will be diminishing in the short term unfortunately.
Hate that for you on the firewall. If you put in https://episodic-medium.ghost.io/, does it bypass it in anyway?
And yeah, the comment piece is a loss as you know, and the thing is that it specifically is an attack on our most loyal readers/commenters. The truth is that the vast majority of comments on the site are by a small number of people, and that means this most impacts them. However, they're also the ones who can be relied on to bring the same energy to the new space.
Hmm unfortuantely not since it redirects to the .tv address instantenously. Though FWIW I can connect to the default ghost.io as well as Sepinwall's URL of: https://alansepinwall.ghost.io/.