I went from slow but steady growth until Dec 2024. I have gained less than net 50subs all 2025. Lost probably 300-400. My average reads of posts dropped about 35%
Maybe some censorship, but I see three things: Trump won, the feeling of existential dread on the right dropped; i changed much of the focus of my substack from politics to the esoteric spiritual so a lot of people were, Meh; a lot of people on the right have soured on substack because it is clear, substack admin means to be the clearinghouse for all things shitlib tds slop, does at best nothing for dissident right writers, and has downplayed long-form writing in favor of scroll addiction.
"Trump won, the feeling of existential dread on the right dropped"
—Yes, this notion has definitely occurred to me too. But my content isn't typical conservative stuff within the red-blue paradigm. I am an anarchist/voluntaryist/whatever.
Granted, I am stridently opposed to leftism as an ideological phenomenon, and many conservatives are borderline libertarians, whereas virtually no lefties really are. So this is certainly a possibility. If the GOP gets hammered in the midterms, or something else comes along to increase existential dread, and I go back to my growth rate of 2024, I will take this all back!
"a lot of people on the right have soured on substack because it is clear, substack admin means to be the clearinghouse for all things shitlib tds slop, does at best nothing for dissident right writers, and has downplayed long-form writing in favor of scroll addiction."
I call myself loosely an anarch, though I lean traditional conservative. I see anarchy as the perfect order of nature, and the far future of humanity, but currently, most unable to see the perfect order of nature, are incapable of ruling themselves.
I hope Substack reads this and takes action - offering audits by good-faith substack writers who can report their findings here for substack readers and writers.
The substack 'brand' is the most valuable thing that Substack has. I hope they don't sacrifice it for some imagined (but transient) political ax they hope to grind. Look at what happened to Snopes (for example).
Demi was very methodical, and went as far as to create tests with posts and notifications and submitted that as data for their team to assess as well. The technical explanations were a bit laughable, it became apparent that Substack could not triage events even with timestamps. Software as a Service 101 is that you track the paths the users take through your apps with timestamps so you can trace and eliminate anecdotal evidence.
I noticed the drop off when the internet censorship bills overseas began being discussed or suggested. It ramped up after that. @Runeknight3 and I are looking into self-publishing and removing anything resembling restraint on a movie rating. Think of what's coming as the brutal Director's Cut. Unrated.
Chris, I have the exact same story, as I'm sure many others do. It is hard to prove, but I occasionally stumble across some stat that makes NO sense that I can use to support my case.
This happened twice, most recently a week ago on a viral video I posted ( https://substack.com/@dukeofgood/note/c-187979354 ) which now has over 8500 likes (including you LOL). I pulled up the stats which showed over a hundred free subscribers from that one post - yet my overall subscriber count on my account had only grown around 25ish...BS.
So, I collected screenshots and contacted support. Like the last time I had evidence and contacted them, I never got any reply. However, my numbers slowly started aligning again, but very incrementally - after about a week now, I'm still down overall, but it's much closer to the real number. So, twice now, after contacting support, it starts adjusting back. Very suspect.
I think they certainly are fudging our numbers.
Fuck substack. Honestly I always have known this would be a short-lived endeavor, so I'm not really surprised. But I will certainly reach a point soon where it just won't be worth the effort and I'll leave.
I'll likely follow @stonebryson over to a site he's also migrating to, for the same reason. ( https://ko-fi.com/stonebryson )
I'm not in it for the money - I just want to spread truth. But it was a nice cherry-on-top, and it makes me feel like I'm being taken advantage of, and that I cannot do.
Meanwhile - I'm going to take advantage of your $1 sub - and I hope you can let me know what you learn when you learn if your unsubs are legit or not. I'm sure they are not. P.S. It seems it charged me $50 but y'know what? That's fine - go get yourself a nice sweater or something.. :D
"makes me feel like I'm being taken advantage of, and that I cannot do."
—Yes, we all have our breaking points.
"I hope you can let me know what you learn when you learn if your unsubs are legit or not."
—I will!
"P.S. It seems it charged me $50 but y'know what? That's fine - go get yourself a nice sweater or something.. :D"
—Weird. I know other people are doing the $1 thing okay. Not sure what happened, but if you need me to fix/refund anything, LMK. In the meantime, I have added a year onto the end of your subscription. I guess we'll see if we're both here by then :-)
If it makes you feel better, i can’t afford and don’t pay any Substack writers. Could it be that maybe people just can’t pay. May God bless you and your family?
My Australian Substacker says somewhat the same. Obviously they want an age-control but it goes further than that.
As to stagnating subscribers, I can testify to that. I already had 20+ paid subscriptions and started counting how much that cost on yearly basis. So now I have unsubscribed from most, so I will get notified when they have to be renewed, instead of automatical renewal. Already 4 have gone, some to my regret. I hope to cut down to less than 500 $ a year.
As I understand it Australia is even worse than the UK.
The censorship of my articles started on 20th November.
The UK censorship is supposed to protect children from websites promoting porn / drugs / suicide etc. My articles certainly don't do any of that, and no bad language either, yet they are censored.
His are all scientific, so none of that, either. It is sad, soon we won't be able to communicate altogether! Some stackers already announced they are looking into other channels. One is building an own web site.
I’m pretty new here maybe 5 or 6 months) and read about these changes, not just in this post. It does sound throttled.
Despite being fairly active, I haven’t hit 350 subs yet. Others who have been here longer talk about thousands subscribed in their first year. 🤷♂️ It feels manipulated. I’ll just keep going because I like it here but the growth is slow.
As the saying goes; any business, no matter how whatchamadoddle it is. it will, with the passing of time become somethingorother.
I've liked and still like the substack platform -or more specifically, the writers therein I choose to read regularly. That it, the platform, will change for the worse over time? Based on everything from the Roman Empire, our Constitutional Republic to Starbucks, yep.
I first read about the subscriber revolt over Anomalous (Anomalous, even weirder [Which is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you.] than you, me or that Barsoom guy.). He wrote an open letter from him & a select group of other substackers to the owners giving them X days to reply and clarify or or their information will be turned over to da gubermint!
Anarcho- Capitalistically I've rather strong distaste for such, however we all gotta do what we all gotta do.
From where I set though, yep, look into it. Find out whatsup. But if you/we readers/writers find this shop unsuitable, perhaps it's time to build a better moosetrap and let the world beat an expressway to etc.....
"any business, no matter how whatchamadoddle it is. it will, with the passing of time become somethingorother."
—Are you talking about Robert Conquest's Second Law?
"I first read about the subscriber revolt over Anomalous"
—Can you tell me more, or where I can learn more? I had not heard of this.
"Anarcho- Capitalistically I've rather strong distaste for such"
—Yeah, I get that. But all of this could be a violation of terms, which could render it vulnerable to civil suit as well. At some point, some court is going to decide that you cannot shadowban some users and not others.
"perhaps it's time to build a better moosetrap"
—Yeah, that is going to happen at some point. And if enough people flee, this place will collapse.
Of course, that does not bother Blackrock or Vanguard or whoever is probably pushing this. Just one more nuked battleground, with casualties other than them.
Your other queries & some notes I haven't replied to yet, maybe, -40°, Xmas, etc. & ditto ditto and another ditto -all that I may get back to after. Grin.
I noted that My open rate is virtually the same from when I hit 500 subs, and now with 1200+. Ever since the ai took over at the end of 2023, this platform has degraded.
I found out about Substack in 2021, was suggested to me by a columnist for a conservative website I collaborated with on a mask article he wrote at my suggestion. He later complained to me that website started censoring his stuff later that same year, was called in by his editor and told that was the new rule, some things verboten, came down from higher up, if he wanted to keep writing for them he had to play by the new rules.
I resisted Substack at first, seeing the censorship winds gathering strength, looked into starting my own website, buying onto a blog template, finding my own server, host, security, etc. Having seen what happened to Parlor in early 2021 where AWS pulled the plug on them, templates like Wordpress revoking privileges, etc I figured out that to build a website that is hardened from all threats is expensive and limiting. Even Cloudfare is run by former top Obama administration officials, they pulled protection from disfavored websites.
Requires finding overseas services that ignore the legal notices of violations, at a cost. Not just financial, they are the services that the "bad guys" like Nick Fuentes and Daily Stormers have to use, which is considered the internet ghetto, will get links, posts and messages with those domains filtered from wider view.
When I finally understood the rules of the game were as rigged as they are I decided to go ahead and start my Stack, though I still have my domain 'freedomfoxes.com' reserved for the day I decide I need to go that direction. I never decided on what services, template is hardened enough, inexpensive enough, and won't land me in the ghetto before I do.
All good things must end, is why it makes sense to have Plan B's and C's and...
Yes, and we must continue to persist. And we must not solely relegate ourselves to a ghetto. A) That makes it too easy for them, in that they no longer have to play whack-a-mole with us. And B) if we are all clustered in one place, it makes it too easy for them to just wall us off completely.
At one point, I looked into a service in Iceland that billed itself as being censorship-free, and for journalists who are afraid in their own countries. Then I found out they were censoring their customers for talking about the BS of masking. Hypocrite coward posers!
I saw that one, too. Got my hopes up. Then discovered they, too, weren't what they were seemed.
I've explored what is done in China, knowing that the quest for free speech is alive there. But it is, as you describe, whack-a-mole.
Surpringly China has more variety in opinion, perspectives, media outlets and intelligent sharing of challenges to official narratives than we do in the US! Of all the things to discover about how much our "free speech" bastion idea is a myth.
China's speech policy is understood as free to opine on most anything, with the exception of some "third-rail" topics. That involve direct challenges to the supreme authority of the state or indirect challenges that gain sufficient following and amplification that they become an actual threat to the state.
They will cordon off, isolate those voices, will even allow them in a "ghetto" as long as they avoid direct confrontation and don't gain traction. The moment they reach a threshold that the state designates as menacing they have their plug 'pulled.' If the voices becomes direct, confrontational the voice will face sanction, punishment.
This model is what Putin in Russia once described when interviewed about what the USSR had done, reaching into homes, families, punatively for minor expressions of disagreement with authorities. Putin's model only cracking down on real, actual challenges to authority that posed a threat to the state in terms of reach, move from words to action.
The UK, Germany, Australia, most of the West today is far stricter and oppressive than either China or Russia. Thoughtspeech is criminalized over nonsensical things like gender, health choices, faith, etc in the West that is ignored in China, Russia.
And the US is just one presidential administration away from the same. Be under no illusion that US courts will intervene to protect free speech. There are only three justices who have consistently upheld the First Amendment as sacrosanct. The rest can be relied upon to find a compelling state interest in restricting speech that not only threatens authority but challenges narratives set by authorities. They may not issue rulings that expressly redefines constitutional protections on speech. They typically resort to not issuing rulings that expressly uphold constitutional protections for speech; they punt. Which is itself a decision.
It's all quite disgusting to me. Is not the values I was raised with, taught I had, joined the military to protect. It's the values I joined the military to oppose. I'm a free speech absolutist. To see us go from the People vs. Larry Flynt porn is protected free speech, but prayer outside abortion clinics, "misgendering" and "deadnaming," words and ideas that merely offend being criminalized, not protected is insane and absurd.
And SCOTUS not quickly stepping in when the First Amendment is under assault like that is, as stated, a decision itself to allow 1A to be eroded. Speech that does not threaten the state, just a narrative, that is more protected in China and Russia.
Cat and mouse, whack-a-mole speech restraints as those authoritarian models practice may soon be seen as more tolerant than speech restraints in the US and West. These are terrible, disgusting, filthy bastards we've allowed to gain control of the levers of power. Still, we will continue to persist.
Musk is no hero. First, his Twitter model is as he's always declared, “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach.” I.e. shadow-banning. And many still remain banned by Twitter/X.
And if that isn’t enough to take the shine off his 'free speech’ reputation there’s this very interesting - and ominous - development.
This article in a MAGA source is celebratory of a new system being implemented in El Salvador, posits it as a good thing, use of AI for "public safety" and developing a wholesome, better society.
Sounds good, right? Who would oppose such a benevolent betterment of humanity with the help of advanced technology? In the right hands, under an understanding of "better" perhaps you would? Maybe I could be tempted to support that type of "better."
Problem is, what is considered "better" is subjective. Subject to the whims, caprices, values, agenda, ethics of those in charge of it.
- "promote responsibility and ethics." Sounds good until you define those.
Who's idea of responsibility and what system of ethics? Is it my responsibility to close my business, wear a mask for a flu? for BLM defund the police rallies? Take a knee, repent for my "white privilege?" Is it the system of ethics you and I typically think of, known as Virtue/Kantian ethics, "do unto others as would be done unto you?" Or Utilitarian ethics, "all must be sacrificed for a greater good as authorities define it," "sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet" (Stalin quote) ethics? Ten-year-olds at no risk of severe disease and infection being forced to take an experimental biotechnology injection that has a greater risk of killing them than a disease itself to "protect grandma" ethics?
- "promotes respect for authority, patriotism, and family involvement." Sounds good until you define those.
Who's authority must be respected? What if I don't want to call Kenneth, "Bridgitte" because he identifies as a woman and authorities tell me I must? What if I don't want to wear a symbolic mask (is all they ever were) in a park, on a sidewalk, shopping in a store, walking ten feet from a hostess stand to a table in a restaurant? What if someone who's gained a position of authority demands I recite a passage from the Koran or the Communist Manifesto to enter City Hall? A supermarket? What if I want to make a meme that mocks a politician, authorities?
- "to form competent, disciplined citizens committed to society, strengthening social cohesion and traditional values."
- "Authorities believe that integrating quality digital education helps keep young people away from crime and subversive influences."
What if I want to agitate for change from a system in power that I believe is corrupt, against my values, values of the nation I was born and raised in that's been perverted into a totalitarian system? And I use my voice in public, in chat rooms, books, blogs, letters to editors? What if I refuse to obey 15-minute city restrictions, try to form a group to help protest totalitarianism?
- "will include usage controls, parental supervision, and content filters to ensure that educational materials respect family and national values." Sounds good until you define those.
Who's values are deemed proper family and national values? A family with trans kids, children genitally mutilated, sterilized because the state's counselors tell a troubled child they are the wrong gender? A genetics test determines the family is below national standards, because they possess genes identified as dim-witted, disabled, antisocial and they must be sterilized? (SCOTUS decision Buck v. Bell from a century ago says that, never overturned.) Those family and national values?
- "respecting school structure and authority." OBEY! Always OBEY authority! 100% obedience is demanded!! Do not question authority!!
- "create a modern, safe education model aligned with Salvadoran culture." Who defines what is Salvadoran (US) culture?
What if the culture is defined by authorities as collectivist authoritarianism, communism, fascism, Marxism? Aligned with that definition of culture?
- "the strengthening of patriotic and family values." Same as above.
- "This initiative is an example of responsible planning that prioritizes security, discipline, and legitimate authority over left-wing ideologies that often neglect responsibility and social order." Who decides what authority is legitimate/illegitimate?
Right now D's (and many Rino's) say Trump's authority is illegitimate. Okay to disobey? Biden/Kamala/AOC's authority is legitimate? Must obey? Who's idea of responsibility and social order? I refuse masks. I refuse jab. I refuse preferred pronouns. I refuse to repent my white privilege. I disobey their idea of responsibility and social order, now what?
- "Responsible digital education strengthens social cohesion and provides real alternatives to crime and instability, showing that combining discipline, law and order, and advanced technology is the path to a safer and more prepared country.
The partnership with Musk and XAI thus becomes a strategic tool to ensure that future generations are competent, ethical, and committed to society."
This is Musk. Supposed hero of MAGA, Trumpism. Yet his system he is helping develop and install in El Salvador. And the US. Unless we find a way to stop it. Will not be limited just in schools, for kids. This is for all of society. Musk and his satellites won’t be protecting our voices.
I thought it was mainly because I had taken a break for a lil to handle personal stuff, but once I heard everyone else was experiencing the same thing in my corner of Substack, it seemed unlikely that the break would cause such a significant decrease in stats once we started hitting the ground running again.
Truthtellers beeing shadowbanned or censored on Substack was inevitable I guess. I stopped deluding myself some time ago that any of these platforms stand for truth and critical journalism. Who said the best way to control the opposition is to lead it yourself? I'm pretty sure that's what's going on here. I suspect substack was a honeypot for dissidents and truthtellers like you.
That is why I strongly suggest everybody look into https://pareto.space/en. It's truly uncensorable and can't be controlled by a single entity. It's based on Nostr https://nostr.how/en/what-is-nostr which enables censorship-resistant and globally decentralized publishing on the web. Monetisation is also possible.
I think it is very important that we start doing this now even if that means some temporary loss of income while some of your subscribers still figure out and migrate to this new system. We have to do this when there is still time to familiarise ourselves and bring subscribers along. I think one of the strategies of the powers that shouldn't be is to delay the wide dissemination and understanding of certain truths as long as possible and I think Nostr could be a tool to get around that.
Good thoughts. I have spoken with others about Nostr. Have you used it? Is it ready for primetime?
One issue is that unless a platform is clean-looking and easy to use, the average person will not move there or stay. It may seem shallow, but it is what it is. It needs a nice GUI.
Well, Nostr is just the protocol that all kinds of applications are based on. For examble, there are a number of twitter-like apps. I startet using Damus https://damus.io/ which is similar to Telegram/WhatsApp/X. So far, I don't have an account on the pareto project because I'm not a content creator (yet).
As mentioned, the pareto project is also based on Nostr. You'll have to take a look and decide for yourself wether the GUI is to your liking. On wether it's ready for prime time? I think so. It's been used for some time now in many different apps.
Pareto looks really cool, and their main page sounds all the right notes.
So here's the next question, and it's a doozy: do they mean it?
I'll explain what I mean.
A few years ago, I started looking at some privacy-based and censorship-resistant services. I wanted email, document editing, that sort of thing. I ended up settling on Proton, which isn't perfect, but it's not bad.
But in the course of that research, I discovered that some services say it, but they don't mean it. One web host in Iceland described itself as existing for the purpose of giving censored voices a hosting home. Then covid happened, and they began taking down sites that expressed concerns about lockdowns and vaxxing!
You get where I am going. I suppose we cannot know for sure, and at some point, we've just got to trust. I just hope a place like Pareto isn't going to suddenly say, "Yeah, we're aren't into censorship……………except when it comes to anarchists/libertarians/rightwingers/whatever."
Do they mean it? I know exactly what you're talking about. In my four years of waking up and researching how the world really works, I repeatedly came across people or platforms I first thought were on our side but later had to find out were agents and gatekeepers for the powers that shouldn't be.
I've been following Milosz Matuschek, the independent german journalist who started the pareto project, for three years and for me he comes across as genuine. But in the end, you can never know.
But the good thing about nostr is that it really is censorship resistant. Worst case scenario: the pareto project folds in an effort to take down the content of the writers. Since nostr is based on relays, if they switch off their relays you can find another relay or run your own and your content is still up and reachable. So they really don't have the power to censor their members. As far as I understand it. You'd have to take a look at the nostr website for technical details.
I don't know about bulk emails but you can send your latest post out as a newsletter similar to substack. Again, for the technical details you'll have to look at the websites of Pareto and Nostr.
One thing they control and nudge us with is convenience and I'm sure Nostr/Pareto will not be as convenient as substack at first but that's to be expected for an open source community driven project. Be that as it may, we have to embrace solutions like that. We have to get over that and start using these tools. The faster content creators switch and the more people use these tools the faster they will improve.
In terms of alternatives: No, I haven't tried any. Well, I looked into qortal https://qortal.org/ briefly but that is too nerdy for my taste, too much tinkering required.
In my opinion the killer feature of Nostr/Pareto is how it's not hosted by one centralised entity but on relays run by the community and therefore your content can't be censored even by people running a platform based on nostr. The other good thing about it is the limited scope, unlike qortal. All you have to do is create public/private keypair and you can start using all the available apps. The bar isn't too high with nostr which is good for writers and users. But as always, there's gonna be a lerning curve.
They are more corporate versions of what I am interested in.
To the best of my knowledge I have not been unsubscribed, but I find that I miss many of the posts of those I am subscribed to. I do not typically miss yours, but often find out my other favorite had a post I have missed.
Even if this were only a technological/code problem, Substack has still shown very little interest in fixing it. Plenty of others have complained about what you just described.
I went from slow but steady growth until Dec 2024. I have gained less than net 50subs all 2025. Lost probably 300-400. My average reads of posts dropped about 35%
Maybe some censorship, but I see three things: Trump won, the feeling of existential dread on the right dropped; i changed much of the focus of my substack from politics to the esoteric spiritual so a lot of people were, Meh; a lot of people on the right have soured on substack because it is clear, substack admin means to be the clearinghouse for all things shitlib tds slop, does at best nothing for dissident right writers, and has downplayed long-form writing in favor of scroll addiction.
"Trump won, the feeling of existential dread on the right dropped"
—Yes, this notion has definitely occurred to me too. But my content isn't typical conservative stuff within the red-blue paradigm. I am an anarchist/voluntaryist/whatever.
Granted, I am stridently opposed to leftism as an ideological phenomenon, and many conservatives are borderline libertarians, whereas virtually no lefties really are. So this is certainly a possibility. If the GOP gets hammered in the midterms, or something else comes along to increase existential dread, and I go back to my growth rate of 2024, I will take this all back!
"a lot of people on the right have soured on substack because it is clear, substack admin means to be the clearinghouse for all things shitlib tds slop, does at best nothing for dissident right writers, and has downplayed long-form writing in favor of scroll addiction."
—That could be part of it too!
I call myself loosely an anarch, though I lean traditional conservative. I see anarchy as the perfect order of nature, and the far future of humanity, but currently, most unable to see the perfect order of nature, are incapable of ruling themselves.
True true.
But if we are to get to that future, then we must keep teaching, working, and building. Though it is far off, the future begins now.
Maga was never really on Substack, they are were are on X. That said, anti vaxx, anti covid, free speech writers adjacent to it were on Substack.
There are a lot of overlap in those crowds, though. And in general, anti vaxx, anti covid, free speech, etc. are more to the right…
Only in past 10 years and particularly past 5. Something to contemplate...
Freedom is freedom. I just want to be free.
I hope Substack reads this and takes action - offering audits by good-faith substack writers who can report their findings here for substack readers and writers.
The substack 'brand' is the most valuable thing that Substack has. I hope they don't sacrifice it for some imagined (but transient) political ax they hope to grind. Look at what happened to Snopes (for example).
We have tried, my old friend. Demi Pietchell (Starfire Codes) especially did so much. She gave them mathematical evidence. They just didn't care.
Demi was very methodical, and went as far as to create tests with posts and notifications and submitted that as data for their team to assess as well. The technical explanations were a bit laughable, it became apparent that Substack could not triage events even with timestamps. Software as a Service 101 is that you track the paths the users take through your apps with timestamps so you can trace and eliminate anecdotal evidence.
Yes, I followed along with all of that, and have discussed it separately with her. It seems pretty apparent that substack does not want to help.
Just wait until they add the line “Our AI Agent did not detect any of the symptoms you forwarded to us.”
That’s the trend we’re all about to experience with most of the services we use today.
Lame. Totally freaking lame.
I noticed the drop off when the internet censorship bills overseas began being discussed or suggested. It ramped up after that. @Runeknight3 and I are looking into self-publishing and removing anything resembling restraint on a movie rating. Think of what's coming as the brutal Director's Cut. Unrated.
A new platform would be cool.
"I noticed the drop off when the internet censorship bills overseas began being discussed or suggested"
—Around when was that?
This was about the time Collective Shoit went after payment processors. I guess politicians saw their terrorism and decided to join in the fun
I wonder if it is possible (with lots of capital) to build a new online world that cannot be censored.
Chris, I have the exact same story, as I'm sure many others do. It is hard to prove, but I occasionally stumble across some stat that makes NO sense that I can use to support my case.
This happened twice, most recently a week ago on a viral video I posted ( https://substack.com/@dukeofgood/note/c-187979354 ) which now has over 8500 likes (including you LOL). I pulled up the stats which showed over a hundred free subscribers from that one post - yet my overall subscriber count on my account had only grown around 25ish...BS.
So, I collected screenshots and contacted support. Like the last time I had evidence and contacted them, I never got any reply. However, my numbers slowly started aligning again, but very incrementally - after about a week now, I'm still down overall, but it's much closer to the real number. So, twice now, after contacting support, it starts adjusting back. Very suspect.
I think they certainly are fudging our numbers.
Fuck substack. Honestly I always have known this would be a short-lived endeavor, so I'm not really surprised. But I will certainly reach a point soon where it just won't be worth the effort and I'll leave.
I'll likely follow @stonebryson over to a site he's also migrating to, for the same reason. ( https://ko-fi.com/stonebryson )
I'm not in it for the money - I just want to spread truth. But it was a nice cherry-on-top, and it makes me feel like I'm being taken advantage of, and that I cannot do.
Meanwhile - I'm going to take advantage of your $1 sub - and I hope you can let me know what you learn when you learn if your unsubs are legit or not. I'm sure they are not. P.S. It seems it charged me $50 but y'know what? That's fine - go get yourself a nice sweater or something.. :D
Merry Christmas backatcha and Happy New Year!
"Very suspect. I think they certainly are fudging our numbers."
—It makes me very angry.
"https://ko-fi.com/stonebryson"
—What do we know about Ko-Fi and who runs it?
"makes me feel like I'm being taken advantage of, and that I cannot do."
—Yes, we all have our breaking points.
"I hope you can let me know what you learn when you learn if your unsubs are legit or not."
—I will!
"P.S. It seems it charged me $50 but y'know what? That's fine - go get yourself a nice sweater or something.. :D"
—Weird. I know other people are doing the $1 thing okay. Not sure what happened, but if you need me to fix/refund anything, LMK. In the meantime, I have added a year onto the end of your subscription. I guess we'll see if we're both here by then :-)
Thanks!!
If it makes you feel better, i can’t afford and don’t pay any Substack writers. Could it be that maybe people just can’t pay. May God bless you and your family?
Who started Substack?
Can we write them?
I understand, and thank you.
I know a lot of people are struggling. That is part of the reason why I made it a dollar.
"Can we write them?"
—It's been done numerous times. They don't care anymore.
I do read and share here and on other places, and friends
Can we try again?
Sign a petition?
I was let go in August from job while I was still ok Workmans comp. Fractured bone in ankle. Waiting and hoping for unemployment. Applying to jobs.
"I do read and share here and on other places, and friends"
—Thank you! 🙏🏻
"Can we try again? Sign a petition?"
—Maybe down the road. We need to accumulate incontrovertible evidence.
"I was let go in August from job while I was still ok Workmans comp. Fractured bone in ankle. Waiting and hoping for unemployment. Applying to jobs."
—I wish you good fortune!
Thank you. Oh 🙏😞
God has us all in His hands
💙
Bingo.
A Tip model works better due to subscription overload.
Oh, that's a really good idea!
Numerous of my articles are age restriction censored in the UK. People can read them using a VPN.
Chat has become unusable. i cannot even see anybody elses chat, even with a VPN.
I have a separate substack account, just to check that my main account is indeed sending out email notifications.
My Australian Substacker says somewhat the same. Obviously they want an age-control but it goes further than that.
As to stagnating subscribers, I can testify to that. I already had 20+ paid subscriptions and started counting how much that cost on yearly basis. So now I have unsubscribed from most, so I will get notified when they have to be renewed, instead of automatical renewal. Already 4 have gone, some to my regret. I hope to cut down to less than 500 $ a year.
As I understand it Australia is even worse than the UK.
The censorship of my articles started on 20th November.
The UK censorship is supposed to protect children from websites promoting porn / drugs / suicide etc. My articles certainly don't do any of that, and no bad language either, yet they are censored.
His are all scientific, so none of that, either. It is sad, soon we won't be able to communicate altogether! Some stackers already announced they are looking into other channels. One is building an own web site.
I think building one's own website is the smartest way to go. Did people say which channels they were looking into if you don't mind me asking?
I found the article, there is a link in it I have not tried. SimpleX.
https://thedailybeagle.substack.com/p/im-very-disappointed-in-you-all?utm_campaign=comment&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post
hey thank you so much Ingrid!!! 🙏
Is SimpleX just chat? Or is it publishing too?
I think Ko-Fi is one. Stone Bryson has created a presence there.
Ditto Tess's question.
This is totally happening, Chris! I noticed it too!
https://mrchrisarnell.com/p/subsnatched-how-the-left-floods-substack
Indeed. SOME Pareto effect (the big getting bigger) is to be expected. But this seems like more than just that.
I’m pretty new here maybe 5 or 6 months) and read about these changes, not just in this post. It does sound throttled.
Despite being fairly active, I haven’t hit 350 subs yet. Others who have been here longer talk about thousands subscribed in their first year. 🤷♂️ It feels manipulated. I’ll just keep going because I like it here but the growth is slow.
I have seen your Notes—they get quite popular. That should have translated to more subs. Weird.
Thanks, I thought so too.
Maybe people are trying, and Substack just sends them into an oubliette.
As the saying goes; any business, no matter how whatchamadoddle it is. it will, with the passing of time become somethingorother.
I've liked and still like the substack platform -or more specifically, the writers therein I choose to read regularly. That it, the platform, will change for the worse over time? Based on everything from the Roman Empire, our Constitutional Republic to Starbucks, yep.
I first read about the subscriber revolt over Anomalous (Anomalous, even weirder [Which is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you.] than you, me or that Barsoom guy.). He wrote an open letter from him & a select group of other substackers to the owners giving them X days to reply and clarify or or their information will be turned over to da gubermint!
Anarcho- Capitalistically I've rather strong distaste for such, however we all gotta do what we all gotta do.
From where I set though, yep, look into it. Find out whatsup. But if you/we readers/writers find this shop unsuitable, perhaps it's time to build a better moosetrap and let the world beat an expressway to etc.....
"any business, no matter how whatchamadoddle it is. it will, with the passing of time become somethingorother."
—Are you talking about Robert Conquest's Second Law?
"I first read about the subscriber revolt over Anomalous"
—Can you tell me more, or where I can learn more? I had not heard of this.
"Anarcho- Capitalistically I've rather strong distaste for such"
—Yeah, I get that. But all of this could be a violation of terms, which could render it vulnerable to civil suit as well. At some point, some court is going to decide that you cannot shadowban some users and not others.
"perhaps it's time to build a better moosetrap"
—Yeah, that is going to happen at some point. And if enough people flee, this place will collapse.
Of course, that does not bother Blackrock or Vanguard or whoever is probably pushing this. Just one more nuked battleground, with casualties other than them.
As to the can you tell me more about, here; https://anonymous8675309.substack.com/p/independent-substack-publishers-class
Your other queries & some notes I haven't replied to yet, maybe, -40°, Xmas, etc. & ditto ditto and another ditto -all that I may get back to after. Grin.
OK BIGGER GRIN!.
Gotcha, thanks, and Merry Christmas!
Restacked. Subscribed. I certainly hope this gets passed around broadly and catalyzes change 🙏🏻 Thank you, Chris.
DV
Thank you, DV. I hope so too!
I noted that My open rate is virtually the same from when I hit 500 subs, and now with 1200+. Ever since the ai took over at the end of 2023, this platform has degraded.
I did this piece...
Substack Censorship (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/substack-censorship
Did your overall growth plateau?
A bit, though it does keep growing - just more slowly.
Was there a pretty obvious moment when it changed from fast growth to slow growth?
Not really but there was one piece - I forget which - that My numbers jumped, and they have been pretty steady but slow since.
Subby will be full blown leftist by 2029. Just in time for the next commie regime to take power in the DC Cesspool.
Then we will have to create a new platform. Samizdat. Whatever. We will win in the end.
I found out about Substack in 2021, was suggested to me by a columnist for a conservative website I collaborated with on a mask article he wrote at my suggestion. He later complained to me that website started censoring his stuff later that same year, was called in by his editor and told that was the new rule, some things verboten, came down from higher up, if he wanted to keep writing for them he had to play by the new rules.
I resisted Substack at first, seeing the censorship winds gathering strength, looked into starting my own website, buying onto a blog template, finding my own server, host, security, etc. Having seen what happened to Parlor in early 2021 where AWS pulled the plug on them, templates like Wordpress revoking privileges, etc I figured out that to build a website that is hardened from all threats is expensive and limiting. Even Cloudfare is run by former top Obama administration officials, they pulled protection from disfavored websites.
Requires finding overseas services that ignore the legal notices of violations, at a cost. Not just financial, they are the services that the "bad guys" like Nick Fuentes and Daily Stormers have to use, which is considered the internet ghetto, will get links, posts and messages with those domains filtered from wider view.
When I finally understood the rules of the game were as rigged as they are I decided to go ahead and start my Stack, though I still have my domain 'freedomfoxes.com' reserved for the day I decide I need to go that direction. I never decided on what services, template is hardened enough, inexpensive enough, and won't land me in the ghetto before I do.
All good things must end, is why it makes sense to have Plan B's and C's and...
..And, still, we persisted...
Yes, and we must continue to persist. And we must not solely relegate ourselves to a ghetto. A) That makes it too easy for them, in that they no longer have to play whack-a-mole with us. And B) if we are all clustered in one place, it makes it too easy for them to just wall us off completely.
At one point, I looked into a service in Iceland that billed itself as being censorship-free, and for journalists who are afraid in their own countries. Then I found out they were censoring their customers for talking about the BS of masking. Hypocrite coward posers!
I saw that one, too. Got my hopes up. Then discovered they, too, weren't what they were seemed.
I've explored what is done in China, knowing that the quest for free speech is alive there. But it is, as you describe, whack-a-mole.
Surpringly China has more variety in opinion, perspectives, media outlets and intelligent sharing of challenges to official narratives than we do in the US! Of all the things to discover about how much our "free speech" bastion idea is a myth.
China's speech policy is understood as free to opine on most anything, with the exception of some "third-rail" topics. That involve direct challenges to the supreme authority of the state or indirect challenges that gain sufficient following and amplification that they become an actual threat to the state.
They will cordon off, isolate those voices, will even allow them in a "ghetto" as long as they avoid direct confrontation and don't gain traction. The moment they reach a threshold that the state designates as menacing they have their plug 'pulled.' If the voices becomes direct, confrontational the voice will face sanction, punishment.
This model is what Putin in Russia once described when interviewed about what the USSR had done, reaching into homes, families, punatively for minor expressions of disagreement with authorities. Putin's model only cracking down on real, actual challenges to authority that posed a threat to the state in terms of reach, move from words to action.
The UK, Germany, Australia, most of the West today is far stricter and oppressive than either China or Russia. Thoughtspeech is criminalized over nonsensical things like gender, health choices, faith, etc in the West that is ignored in China, Russia.
And the US is just one presidential administration away from the same. Be under no illusion that US courts will intervene to protect free speech. There are only three justices who have consistently upheld the First Amendment as sacrosanct. The rest can be relied upon to find a compelling state interest in restricting speech that not only threatens authority but challenges narratives set by authorities. They may not issue rulings that expressly redefines constitutional protections on speech. They typically resort to not issuing rulings that expressly uphold constitutional protections for speech; they punt. Which is itself a decision.
It's all quite disgusting to me. Is not the values I was raised with, taught I had, joined the military to protect. It's the values I joined the military to oppose. I'm a free speech absolutist. To see us go from the People vs. Larry Flynt porn is protected free speech, but prayer outside abortion clinics, "misgendering" and "deadnaming," words and ideas that merely offend being criminalized, not protected is insane and absurd.
And SCOTUS not quickly stepping in when the First Amendment is under assault like that is, as stated, a decision itself to allow 1A to be eroded. Speech that does not threaten the state, just a narrative, that is more protected in China and Russia.
Cat and mouse, whack-a-mole speech restraints as those authoritarian models practice may soon be seen as more tolerant than speech restraints in the US and West. These are terrible, disgusting, filthy bastards we've allowed to gain control of the levers of power. Still, we will continue to persist.
Will we be driven to some dark-web approach? Or maybe a rich person like Musk puts up his own satellite and we use that…
Musk is no hero. First, his Twitter model is as he's always declared, “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach.” I.e. shadow-banning. And many still remain banned by Twitter/X.
And if that isn’t enough to take the shine off his 'free speech’ reputation there’s this very interesting - and ominous - development.
This article in a MAGA source is celebratory of a new system being implemented in El Salvador, posits it as a good thing, use of AI for "public safety" and developing a wholesome, better society.
https://gatewayhispanic.com/2025/12/el-salvador-launches-partnership-elon-musk-revolutionize-public/
Sounds good, right? Who would oppose such a benevolent betterment of humanity with the help of advanced technology? In the right hands, under an understanding of "better" perhaps you would? Maybe I could be tempted to support that type of "better."
Problem is, what is considered "better" is subjective. Subject to the whims, caprices, values, agenda, ethics of those in charge of it.
- "promote responsibility and ethics." Sounds good until you define those.
Who's idea of responsibility and what system of ethics? Is it my responsibility to close my business, wear a mask for a flu? for BLM defund the police rallies? Take a knee, repent for my "white privilege?" Is it the system of ethics you and I typically think of, known as Virtue/Kantian ethics, "do unto others as would be done unto you?" Or Utilitarian ethics, "all must be sacrificed for a greater good as authorities define it," "sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet" (Stalin quote) ethics? Ten-year-olds at no risk of severe disease and infection being forced to take an experimental biotechnology injection that has a greater risk of killing them than a disease itself to "protect grandma" ethics?
- "promotes respect for authority, patriotism, and family involvement." Sounds good until you define those.
Who's authority must be respected? What if I don't want to call Kenneth, "Bridgitte" because he identifies as a woman and authorities tell me I must? What if I don't want to wear a symbolic mask (is all they ever were) in a park, on a sidewalk, shopping in a store, walking ten feet from a hostess stand to a table in a restaurant? What if someone who's gained a position of authority demands I recite a passage from the Koran or the Communist Manifesto to enter City Hall? A supermarket? What if I want to make a meme that mocks a politician, authorities?
- "to form competent, disciplined citizens committed to society, strengthening social cohesion and traditional values."
- "Authorities believe that integrating quality digital education helps keep young people away from crime and subversive influences."
What if I want to agitate for change from a system in power that I believe is corrupt, against my values, values of the nation I was born and raised in that's been perverted into a totalitarian system? And I use my voice in public, in chat rooms, books, blogs, letters to editors? What if I refuse to obey 15-minute city restrictions, try to form a group to help protest totalitarianism?
- "will include usage controls, parental supervision, and content filters to ensure that educational materials respect family and national values." Sounds good until you define those.
Who's values are deemed proper family and national values? A family with trans kids, children genitally mutilated, sterilized because the state's counselors tell a troubled child they are the wrong gender? A genetics test determines the family is below national standards, because they possess genes identified as dim-witted, disabled, antisocial and they must be sterilized? (SCOTUS decision Buck v. Bell from a century ago says that, never overturned.) Those family and national values?
- "respecting school structure and authority." OBEY! Always OBEY authority! 100% obedience is demanded!! Do not question authority!!
- "create a modern, safe education model aligned with Salvadoran culture." Who defines what is Salvadoran (US) culture?
What if the culture is defined by authorities as collectivist authoritarianism, communism, fascism, Marxism? Aligned with that definition of culture?
- "the strengthening of patriotic and family values." Same as above.
- "This initiative is an example of responsible planning that prioritizes security, discipline, and legitimate authority over left-wing ideologies that often neglect responsibility and social order." Who decides what authority is legitimate/illegitimate?
Right now D's (and many Rino's) say Trump's authority is illegitimate. Okay to disobey? Biden/Kamala/AOC's authority is legitimate? Must obey? Who's idea of responsibility and social order? I refuse masks. I refuse jab. I refuse preferred pronouns. I refuse to repent my white privilege. I disobey their idea of responsibility and social order, now what?
- "Responsible digital education strengthens social cohesion and provides real alternatives to crime and instability, showing that combining discipline, law and order, and advanced technology is the path to a safer and more prepared country.
The partnership with Musk and XAI thus becomes a strategic tool to ensure that future generations are competent, ethical, and committed to society."
This is Musk. Supposed hero of MAGA, Trumpism. Yet his system he is helping develop and install in El Salvador. And the US. Unless we find a way to stop it. Will not be limited just in schools, for kids. This is for all of society. Musk and his satellites won’t be protecting our voices.
Maybe we learn how to send smoke signals?
Exactly happening to me
When did it start?
My post views are half and my notes are almost zero even though I stopped posting controversial topics
Oh, once they put you on the naughty list, I think you're there forever.
Appears so
I think it is because I posted about nigger fatigue and illegal invaders. The situation with Iryna Zarutska broke me.
Yes, that might've done it. And yes, the Iryna Zarutska situation broke a lot of people—understandably so.
Been brutal for a while. Stats basically got cut by 70-80% across the board minus our email readers. That’s stayed consistent. Oh well.
When did the drop happen?
Around end of 2024
Just a little bit before mine.
I thought it was mainly because I had taken a break for a lil to handle personal stuff, but once I heard everyone else was experiencing the same thing in my corner of Substack, it seemed unlikely that the break would cause such a significant decrease in stats once we started hitting the ground running again.
Idk. It’s all sketch.
Yes it is. But we must keep fighting.
Oh trust! I ain’t going no where. :)
Truthtellers beeing shadowbanned or censored on Substack was inevitable I guess. I stopped deluding myself some time ago that any of these platforms stand for truth and critical journalism. Who said the best way to control the opposition is to lead it yourself? I'm pretty sure that's what's going on here. I suspect substack was a honeypot for dissidents and truthtellers like you.
That is why I strongly suggest everybody look into https://pareto.space/en. It's truly uncensorable and can't be controlled by a single entity. It's based on Nostr https://nostr.how/en/what-is-nostr which enables censorship-resistant and globally decentralized publishing on the web. Monetisation is also possible.
I think it is very important that we start doing this now even if that means some temporary loss of income while some of your subscribers still figure out and migrate to this new system. We have to do this when there is still time to familiarise ourselves and bring subscribers along. I think one of the strategies of the powers that shouldn't be is to delay the wide dissemination and understanding of certain truths as long as possible and I think Nostr could be a tool to get around that.
Good thoughts. I have spoken with others about Nostr. Have you used it? Is it ready for primetime?
One issue is that unless a platform is clean-looking and easy to use, the average person will not move there or stay. It may seem shallow, but it is what it is. It needs a nice GUI.
Well, Nostr is just the protocol that all kinds of applications are based on. For examble, there are a number of twitter-like apps. I startet using Damus https://damus.io/ which is similar to Telegram/WhatsApp/X. So far, I don't have an account on the pareto project because I'm not a content creator (yet).
As mentioned, the pareto project is also based on Nostr. You'll have to take a look and decide for yourself wether the GUI is to your liking. On wether it's ready for prime time? I think so. It's been used for some time now in many different apps.
Pareto looks really cool, and their main page sounds all the right notes.
So here's the next question, and it's a doozy: do they mean it?
I'll explain what I mean.
A few years ago, I started looking at some privacy-based and censorship-resistant services. I wanted email, document editing, that sort of thing. I ended up settling on Proton, which isn't perfect, but it's not bad.
But in the course of that research, I discovered that some services say it, but they don't mean it. One web host in Iceland described itself as existing for the purpose of giving censored voices a hosting home. Then covid happened, and they began taking down sites that expressed concerns about lockdowns and vaxxing!
You get where I am going. I suppose we cannot know for sure, and at some point, we've just got to trust. I just hope a place like Pareto isn't going to suddenly say, "Yeah, we're aren't into censorship……………except when it comes to anarchists/libertarians/rightwingers/whatever."
Do they mean it? I know exactly what you're talking about. In my four years of waking up and researching how the world really works, I repeatedly came across people or platforms I first thought were on our side but later had to find out were agents and gatekeepers for the powers that shouldn't be.
I've been following Milosz Matuschek, the independent german journalist who started the pareto project, for three years and for me he comes across as genuine. But in the end, you can never know.
But the good thing about nostr is that it really is censorship resistant. Worst case scenario: the pareto project folds in an effort to take down the content of the writers. Since nostr is based on relays, if they switch off their relays you can find another relay or run your own and your content is still up and reachable. So they really don't have the power to censor their members. As far as I understand it. You'd have to take a look at the nostr website for technical details.
Wise words.
Can you send bulk emails from Pareto/Nostr, the way you can here?
Also, have you tried any other alternatives?
I don't know about bulk emails but you can send your latest post out as a newsletter similar to substack. Again, for the technical details you'll have to look at the websites of Pareto and Nostr.
One thing they control and nudge us with is convenience and I'm sure Nostr/Pareto will not be as convenient as substack at first but that's to be expected for an open source community driven project. Be that as it may, we have to embrace solutions like that. We have to get over that and start using these tools. The faster content creators switch and the more people use these tools the faster they will improve.
In terms of alternatives: No, I haven't tried any. Well, I looked into qortal https://qortal.org/ briefly but that is too nerdy for my taste, too much tinkering required.
In my opinion the killer feature of Nostr/Pareto is how it's not hosted by one centralised entity but on relays run by the community and therefore your content can't be censored even by people running a platform based on nostr. The other good thing about it is the limited scope, unlike qortal. All you have to do is create public/private keypair and you can start using all the available apps. The bar isn't too high with nostr which is good for writers and users. But as always, there's gonna be a lerning curve.
I am 100% sure this is happening. I have also been subscribed to crap I have never heard of.
Is there any pattern to what you get subscribed to? And have you confirmed that you have been unsubscribed from anything without your knowledge?
They are more corporate versions of what I am interested in.
To the best of my knowledge I have not been unsubscribed, but I find that I miss many of the posts of those I am subscribed to. I do not typically miss yours, but often find out my other favorite had a post I have missed.
Even if this were only a technological/code problem, Substack has still shown very little interest in fixing it. Plenty of others have complained about what you just described.
This piece explains it too.
https://mrchrisarnell.com/p/substack-illusion
It appears there may also be actual censorship going on. My next test is to compare my unsubscribe rates before and after the plateau.
BTW: Do you have your stack set so that only people who are subscribed can like/restack your stuff?