So long, Substack
Readers, this has been a fun experiment, but I’ve decided to pull the plug. This is the last installment of my Substack newsletter. I’ve only written five posts prior to this one all year, so it’s hardly a great loss, but thank you for reading nonetheless!
I’d pretty much made the decision to wind this down before the current controversy over Substack’s moderation policies. Substack is great if you’re trying to monetize a newsletter, but that’s never been my aim here. I’m also less interested in the epistolary format now than when I started the newsletter during the shared experience of pandemic isolation. Mostly I’ve kept up with this as a way to share the writing I publish in other places.
For that goal, Substack has not turned out to be very useful. My audience is smaller here than on other platforms, and the percentage of readers that actually click through links is small. Optimistically, that means you’ve already seen the articles elsewhere before I get around to sharing them here. Or maybe you don’t care. Either way, the returns to writing this are pretty low.
When I want to get paid for my writing, I write for other publications. When I want to write for free, I have my own blog. So what do I get out of Substack? I don’t have a good answer to that question, so I’m going to spend my time elsewhere.
If you pay attention to such things, you’re probably aware of the debate over whether Substack should allow Nazis to publish newsletters on its platform. (Substack says yes.) In fairness to Substack, this is a harder question than some critics make it out to be. There are cases to be made for taking a maximally hands-off approach to moderating speech and for treating Substack more like newsletter infrastructure than like broadcast social media. Ken White explores all this in a great post (on Substack!) that sums up my views on the subject. It’s not just about moderation policies, it’s about branding, and Substack tries to have this both ways: claiming to be a neutral platform when it suits them, but also making some rather questionable decisions about whom they choose to promote.
Reasonable people can disagree about moderation policies, but that brand is not one that I personally have any great desire to be associated with. And since I’m not even trying to get paid here, it’s easy enough to decide not to be. (If I were trying to get paid, the decision might be more difficult; Substack is very good at getting people to open their wallets to support writers they like.) I was already inclined to phase out my newsletter because it doesn’t suit my purposes as a writer, but Substack management is making that decision easier.
Where to find me going forward? I’ve been saying for years that we should return to more old school blogging on our own websites, so I’m going to do that. (If you use an RSS reader, follow my RSS feed.) I’m also posting at Bluesky (jacobgrier.bsky.social). And I’m most active on Seabird, the app we designed specifically for the purpose of sharing links and following writers. We have a small but growing community there, and if you’ve been a subscriber here then I’d be very happy to welcome you. Sign up here and I’ll send an invitation your way.
Lastly, I do still have the email list for this newsletter. If I decide to restart something similar someday or have a major project to announce, you’ll hear from me then.
Recent writing
For Reason, I wrote a Repeal Day piece on what lessons the end of alcohol Prohibition holds for the current era of prohibiting nicotine and tobacco. Relatedly, at my blog I wrote about a topic that’s a little under the radar: whether a Biden administration plan to announce a ban on menthol cigarettes in 2024 risks alienating voters needed to beat Trump. And for the Examiner, I reviewed Netflix’s surprisingly good docuseries “Big Vape.” (Click here for an ungated link.)
A couple drinks for the road
I suspect a lot of you read this newsletter for the cocktails, so I’ll leave you with one more. A couple days ago my coauthor Brett Adams and I went on our local Portland morning show to make a pair of winter cocktails, a stone fence and a rum old-fashioned with touches of sherry and allspice dram. Watch the segment here.
The stone fence also works great as a hot drink. I adapted this for a recent holiday walk on a cold night and it was perfect batched in a big thermos. It’s also very easy to make. Scale up as desired and use the best, freshest apple cider you can find.
1 1/2 oz bourbon
1/2 oz funky rum
5-6 oz fresh apple cider
1-2 dashes Angostura bitters
Heat and enjoy!