Not Another Substack Post

Moving this newsletter right now might kill it

This is a quick station break to let folks know that Systematic Hatreds will not be leaving Substack immediately. There are several reasons for this, but the sufficient ones are as follows. (I will assume by now that you, as a subscriber to a Substack newsletter, understand at least the vague outlines of the controversy.)

No other platform appears to be able to substitute for Substack right now. On a technical level, Buttondown, for instance, just isn’t up to par—a lack of comments on its own is disqualifying. And it’s hard to convey to readers how smooth Substack is on the backend—probably the best natural blogging platform I’ve ever used! And I don’t have to worry about stupid mailing list things or backend BS, which is the knock against moving this to WordPress.

Political risks are widespread. The natural alternative to Substack is Ghost, but … Ghost powers The Atlantic and Quillette, both of which are (ironically, in The Atlantic’s case!) potential targets for activism. (And Ghost features Quillette right on its home page, which is the same knock as against Substack/Hanania.) Moving from one platform only to land in another one where I might have to move again—well, that’s not appetizing right now.

Moving this newsletter would kill it. Moving to another platform carries another significant risk: that it will lead to the end of this newsletter.

This newsletter serves several purposes, but it also has a clear proposition for me: it has to pay for itself. Not many of you subscribe, and that’s fine, but the very kind one percent of you who do subscribe are what’s keeping it afloat. Unlike some folks around here, writing a newsletter isn’t my job, so I have the luxury of not being bound to a platform to pay the rent. It’s also true that, unlike some professors on here, I’m not making five or even seven figures per year from this work, but the amount I do make allows me, possibly unwisely!, to justify spending time on this newsletter at all. If monetization becomes more challenging (in fact, if it dips even slightly), then this publication will be suspended. (That’s not the case for its partner project, Thesis Statement, which does not rely on subscription revenue for its “business case.”)

The pincer, of course, is that the recent contretemps has probably made some left-leaning members of my audience less likely to support any publication on Substack in the first place. I understand this! I would not have researched alternatives if I did not have sympahty for this position! But ultimately I have to allocate my labor in response to incentives. As John Ganz points out, it’s just objectively the case that an anti-Substack wave could have substantial unintended consequences. I think that’s particularly the case for small or marginal publications like this one.

Switching costs are a further consideration. Bluntly, I don’t have time to do a migration of this newsletter right now, or for the next several months. Undertaking such a move would risk subscribers, would cost me a lot of time, much more than the project is worth in economic terms.

I think Systematic Hatreds has been valuable. I’m deeply grateful to the friends and strangers who have supported it, and to the much larger number of folks who have read it and shared individual posts. I’ve tried to deliver useful and interesting content. I have, like all newsletter writers have, plans for how to make it more timely and … systematic than it has been. I would prefer not to give this up. But I want to explain why this is not an easy decision to make—and why you will see both smaller and bigger names than mine, people who don’t make anything or people who are making tens of thousands of dollars (or more) from their newsletters, make any such move much faster than this newsletter will.

I will also state that I hope that Substack will re-evaluate its positions on clearly defined extremist speech, and enforce its terms of service more consistently.