I'm just going to say it.
Sometimes when I scroll past a Substack post, or see someone talk about their publication over there, I feel the energy. That quiet pull of "maybe I should just be over there too".
But here's the thing. I was actually over there. Before this "join Substack" trend happened, I had my own publication, a couple of articles up, no subscribers yet, but the foundation was there and it was genuinely good in my opinion.
The setup was easy, the writing experience felt clean and intentional in a way that made sitting down to write feel less like a production and more like just... writing.
And the community?! That part surprised me the most because the people over there are actually supportive. Writers actually read other writers articles, leaving thoughtful comments, and engaging like they mean it.
It felt inspiring.
So why did I leave?
It wasn't the ownership argument. I know a lot of bloggers and email marketers say "you're building on rented land. Build on something you own." and while that's technically true, it's not why I made the decision to leave. I've heard that argument applied to basically every platform that's ever existed and at some point it starts to feel like a reason to never build anywhere at all.
My reason was more personal than that.
I started noticing a slow shift of popularity and performative energy come to the platform. Substack Notes was introduced and started taking up more and more real estate.
You open the app and you're immediately in a feed. Same thing with the website. The long form articles which is the whole reason I thought the platform existed started to feel secondary to the short form social layer being built on top of it especially when they introduced followers alongside subscribers.
Why would I want people to only "follow" me and not subscribe and be apart of the community? Isn't a subscriber still a "follower" in a way?
And I already have Threads for the social media side of things, so the idea of managing essentially the same kind of content inside my publication platform felt too redundant and exhausting.
So I left and built Her Written Copy instead and most days I feel great about that. Building something outside of the norm, separating my hot takes from my deeper dives and then every so often the FOMO would visit again and I had to truly sit down and understand why it still had a hold on me.
It was never really about Substack the platform itself.
I think it's more about me watching a platform that I once had genuine belief in and felt something good about building on, slowly become something I was trying to escape from all while not being entirely sure if I left at the right time or too early. That uncertainty is so uncomfortable for an over thinker/perfectionist.
When building a brand, I wanted to make sure I'm doing it the "right" way the first time and not putting in all this time and effort for it to only fall down.
And there's also the practical reality of where I am right now that I had to be honest with myself about. I'm still in the beginning stages of building my audience and my community. My list is still growing. My readers are still finding me and because of that, if something were to happen to my Threads account tomorrow, or if Threads itself shut down, or any of my other social media accounts, I would be right back on Substack.
It aligns perfectly with the vibe and tone of what I'm currently building to make sense.
If I already had an established, engaged community, a platform shift wouldn't really break anything because the relationships would already exist beyond the social media platform however right now, before that foundation is fully built, having a contingency that actually fits matters.
So Substack, I see you. I felt you and your FOMO is valid. You're good at what you do, but so am I and right now what I'm doing lives somewhere else and that's okay.
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