Consider tossing some doubloons towards a paid subscription, if you’d be so kind. I try to keep as many of these as possible free to start, but more paid subs do make a difference for both of us. Added access and features for you, vital income and creative incentive for moi. I’m also gonna sprinkle in walled-first posts soon, so stay tuned. My bills say “thank you” in advance!
On to the essay:
And now for something completely different!
I basically never go meta and talk about Substack on Substack. At least not in a full blog post. (I have admittedly been known to crow and grouse in the Notes app. #SOBstack.) But this week a few rather unusual tweaks were made, ones well worth explaining to y’all here, especially if you’re as unaware as I was until recently. Call it a community service post.
Another Day, Another Algo
As
amongst numerous others noticed, the algo has been tweaked yet again. New tabs have been added, and the Substack is apparently experimenting with a trending-focused feed view as opposed to more chronological and naturalistic approaches. I’m neither enough of a techie nor enough of Substack expert to comment authoritatively on all these changes, but if the cursory comments I saw when I used the cursed search feature were any indication, these updates have gotten a decidedly…mixed…reception thus far.Probably doesn’t help that Substack corporate seems to making changes every week at this point, with some joking—at least I think they’re jokes—that it feels more like something new every week. As a long-suffering Xitter user, I know all too well the pain of a platform’s internal leadership trying to fix what’s not broken, all in search of pernicious and mercurial growth trends. I hope the team at Substack don’t push their luck too hard with these moves. Guess we’ll see.
Inverted Status Symbols
In arguably more intelligible, and certainly more benign-to-positive coded, news this week, we have a new set of milestone badges to get automatically applied to our profiles!
Interestingly, these are benefactor focused, whereas the colored checkmarks are about being a beneficiary. In essence, as the brilliantly concise and helpful note from
above lays out, you get one of three different types of badges based on how many publications you’re a paid subscriber of. One of the actual Substack bosses, Chris Best, explains further below.
And lest I be remiss by failing to show you what the 4 pedal version, here’s an example featuring the brilliant
:
All things being equal, I think this addition is good. I’ve long said that not everyone here is a creator. Plenty are audience members. Some are a bit of both. All the better that the payers get some bling, as the high level payees already had up to now. If I weren’t a total broke bitch, I’d spring for one of these myself. Ah well. Just gonna have to hope I can swing the other kind the hard way. (My proper thoughts on that whole rigmarole shall be saved for another day.)
EDIT: Maybe Not So Good
It's actually really funny how the flower/benefactor badges have proven more controversial and discourse driving than the colored checkmarks. My opinion on the former has gone into flux as the criticisms and backbiting intensify. I affirmatively agree that the rollout was screwed up, and I'm disappointed it's still not totally clear how to turn them off (or if people even can).
That said, I think the reactions have also been quite illuminating psychologically. Some users reflexively like them (moi). Some don't. The reasons why are varied, but a few things motivation dissent might be:
Privacy invasion vibes, not wanting to be outed as a benefactor. (I'm tempted to use a more crude term here btw, cuz I think it's more fitting to how these people feel.)
Fear of being pursued/pitched more aggressively for money. I think this one's overblown, but IDK.
General discontent over the implications of yet another status symbol which shows who's got money and who doesn't. (The checkmarks are obviously all making money, the flowers have disposable funds.)
I'm probably the most sympathetic to #1, but only insofar as the badge can't be easily turned off without cancelling all of one's subscriptions. If it can't, that's gonna cause massive, income lowering problems on the platform. I really hope the Substack staff make sure this gets handled and smoothed over properly.
As to the other two, I'm tempted to say that's just neuroticism talking, re the people it applies to? Status anxiety is omnipresent. I'm sorry if some would prefer to pretend month doesn't matter, but that's a cope, and a privileged one to boot. Ask any legit poor person, money matters. But even so, I'm not gonna start harassing flower badges to pay me. Who would?
To end this edited in section, I think we all just gotta chill out on this one. Send whatever customer requests to the actual Substack staff (who famously, per their own words, DON'T READ OUR NOTES), and hope for the best. I think think this will work out in the end.
Closing Thoughts - Q&A
Like I said above, I hope that Substack corp doesn’t get out over its skis by changing too much too fast, or trying too hard to make itself look more shiny or sexy than it needs to with all its new investment money. Positive QoL stuff like the flower badges are great. Making the feed too dopamine hacked? Less so. But hey, I’m just a humble, poor lowby. What do YOU all think, my fellow Substack denizens? Sound off in the comments and note restacks. See ya next time.