The Demise of a Newsletter

One of the few newsletters I pay to subscribe to is Spruce Island from Orthodox Christian writer Michael Warren Davis. Davis is packing it in after a send-off entitled “Death to Substack.” Davis minces no words in his antipathy towards the platform. As someone who writes on matters of faith, he’s able to easily target the content that dominates that niche on Substack.

Just look at the Faith & Spirituality bestsellers. #1 is some Nostradamus bullshit. #2 is The Pillar, which is the exception that proves the rule. #3 is a liberal LGBT Lutheran ladypastor. #4 is a guy who literally posts about nothing but how much he hates Donald Trump. Then there’s more hooky bullshit about prophecies and astrology before you find really thoughtful writers like Emily Stimpson Chapman, David Bentley Hart, and Peter Kwasniewski.

Unlike Casey Newton and that writer from the Atlantic who spends his time online trolling real journalists, Davis isn’t making claims that Substack is some kind of “Nazi bar.”¹

Davis is rooting his criticism in material changes that the platform has made to promote the notes feature heavily, resulting in a more social-media-like approach and a degradation of the level of thought. Davis also doesn’t trade in Doctorow-esque vulgarities to describe the platform’s decline. However, if you read through his critique, it doesn’t veer too far from the regression that Doctorow has outlined these sorts of companies go through.

What I don’t understand is why people think Substack is the only platform out there that does blogs/newsletters. At least Newton realized that he could do the same thing on Ghost with more ownership. I think I’ll drop Davis a line and suggest that he could move Spruce Island and keep roughly the same business model.

Death to Substack

Against the Machine—this one, specifically.

Spruce Islandmwd

1. I’ve read hundreds of publications on Substack and never once come across a Nazi account. Not to say that a scant few don’t exist, but you’d expect to see at least one Nazi if you went to a “Nazi bar.” So much for the big scoop. ↩︎