Why Substack shouldn't be the future of online publishing

The open web can be the future of publishing if we put our minds to it!

Mathew Ingram on publishing tools versus publishing platforms, and why Substack shouldn't be seen as the future of online publishing. He also quotes from Ana Marie Cox's recent piece, Substack Did Not See That Coming, which has been lingering in the back of my mind for a while.

Everything suspect about Substack stems from a desire to be more like a sticky destination and less like a publisher. You can ignore their posturing about free speech and just look at how they’re leaning harder and harder into audience capture and engagement. They’re offering audio, video, short-form posts, “discoverability.” They want to keep readers in their app listening, watching, interacting—anything but reading newsletters in their inbox as God intended.