Goodbye X, Hello Substack
The delightful surprise that got me writing again
Elon Musk tossed me off the X platform a couple of weeks ago. Sure, he didn’t do it himself, but his leadership and haphazard approach to technology, as well as his premature reliance on his flawed AI, Grok, still resulted in a permanent suspension of my account without warning or cause.
After a week of appealing to the feckless black hole that is X’s customer support, I realized I didn’t care. So, I disabled my other paid account, disputed its annual fee with my credit card company, and started moving back to Substack.
I logged into my dusty Substack account less than a week ago and have been delightfully surprised by the vast number of new features (Notes, videos, podcasts, etc). Even more impressive is that they actually work; quite well, in fact. Even reporting two CSS z-index bugs on the Branding page was a joy because, unlike the “customer support” AI on X—which tells you you’re ugly and slams the door in your face—Substack’s bot listened, offered some workarounds, and logged a ticket with the engineering team. Here we are one day later, and Substack engineers have fixed both bugs.
Here are some screenshots from yesterday—
—and some screenshots of the same page today.
The difference between Substack and X appears to be that Substack is focused on providing its customers with the best possible writing platform and experience, whereas X prioritizes chasing shiny things at the expense of its customers.
Prior to Elon punting me off his platform and metaphorically pressing his hands over his ears while shouting, “La-la-la-la-la-la,” when I protested, I had stopped writing and instead turned into a habitual doomscroller. I could not muster up an ounce of motivation and thought I’d lost my taste for the written word. However, after returning to Substack for just one week, I’ve written three full-length posts and had some pleasant Note exchanges with members of this wonderful community.
It is amazing how much a well-architected platform can motivate you to pick up something you once loved again. Thanks, Substack!!! I’m sorry I wandered away in the first place.
Ha! How’s that for browntonguing?
