Three Cheers (and a Cautious Inhale) for Substack Notes

Substack Notes is the first social internet development that I've truly been excited about in a long time

You’re reading “Passing Through Digital Babylon”, a newsletter of insights and reflections from the digital empire while journeying towards the heavenly city. If that sounds interesting to you, please consider subscribing!

In last week’s installment, I had planned to write on the providence of God’s gifts in Digital Babylon; just as God gave Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah the gifts they’d need to accomplish God’s purposes in Digital Babylon, God has dispersed similar gifts among his people today. But, I want to punt on that for a week because I want to celebrate the launch of Substack Notes, the newest feature on the platform for writers to engage with other writers and readers.

I’ve been rooting for Substack to truly grow and become a viable platform on its own. When Substack Chat came out, I thought this was a good move, but not quite the move that would take Substack to the next level. With Notes, I think that tipping point has come to where Substack can be a self-sustaining platform for writers. While other social media platforms - including a particular blue bird app - may still be helpful to promote our work, writers on Substack are no longer as beholden to them as necessities. Regardless if it’s successful or not, this is a major accomplishment for a digital media ecosystem desperately trying to escape the gravity of the black hole of social media.

Here are three things I hope for Substack Notes, plus one cautionary inhale that I have as this new service take off the ground.

One: I hope Substack Notes remains driven by good writers and their work

I was drawn to Substack because Substack, from the top to bottom, cares about writing for writing’s sake. In a world increasingly dominated by image-driven discourse and where literacy rates continue to plummet across the country, Substack empowers and celebrates writers who want to write well, giving them the infrastructure, tools, and even networking to support those who love to write.

With Notes, I hope that Substack continues to recognize, promote, and reward those who use Substack the way that it is intended. Of course, as Notes grows and scales upward, bad actors and dark patterns will emerge - it is not a question of if, but when. It will be upon the broader Substack community to recognize those bad actors and dark patterns and choose to starve them of attention and engagement when they appear. If Substack and the broader community can remain diligently focused on what makes Substack great, Substack Notes will become an incredible corner of the social internet.

Two: I hope Substack Notes allows writers to concentrate more on writing, and less on playing the social media promotion game

One of my biggest frustrations as an unknown writer with a tiny audience is that I have to work hard to play the social media promotion game than most. Thankfully, my work as a social media manager gives me some tools and techniques to work with that do help, but even the best of promotion efforts are at the mercy of the almighty algorithm. When I budget time to write, I hate that a good portion of that budget has to go to how I am going to get my writing out.

With Notes, I hope that I am able to spend less time trying to game the algorithm and more time writing. Of course, writers will still need to promote their work, and spend the time needed to do that well. With Notes, however, I hope Substack can give writers back a chunk of writing time by taking care of the promotion for them.

Three: I hope Substack Notes allows for writers and reader to discover new writers, and new ideas, apart from negative polarization and tribal filtering.

Admittedly, this one is likely wishful thinking on my end. The social, political, economic, and religious skirmishes of social media will inevitably make their way onto Substack Notes, with new battle lines drawn and new tactics developed for engaging in those all-too-familiar clashes. Negative polarization and tribal filtering have long been the gatekeepers for sharing work and ideas, and I don’t expect Substack Notes to be immune from this phenomenon.

However, with Substack Notes, I do hope that the platform and community can recover a culture of good-faith engagement with ideas and thinkers. I hope that Substack Notes can contribute to a de-polarization of writers by giving them a space where they can write without fear of tribalistic Twitter takedowns. Of course, it will be up to the community to truly enforce this - to remember where most of us came from and the hellscape that it was - and choose to do things differently in this new corner of the social internet.

But now for the cautious inhale…

… Substack Notes is new. The excitement and novelty will eventually wear off. Substack, as a platform, will encounter developments and challenges that they may anticipate - or get blindsided by. We now have the entire history of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms that demonstrate how good intentions and wholesome golden eras fade away into destructive chaos. Time will tell how Substack responds to these all-too-familiar story beats.

But, for the first time in a long time, I am excited about something on the social internet. I do not recall feeling this excited or hopeful about a development like this in probably a decade. Whatever challenges and disappointments may lay ahead in the future of Notes, I am genuinely thankful that there is an opportunity to hit a partial “reset” on writing culture, and hopeful that this “reset” will bring a lot of good with it.

How to join Substack Notes

Head to substack.com/notes or find the “Notes” tab in the Substack app. As a subscriber to Passing Through Digital Babylon, you’ll automatically see my notes. Feel free to like, reply, or share them around!

You can also share notes of your own. I hope this becomes a space where every reader of Passing Through Digital Babylon can share thoughts, ideas, and interesting quotes from the things we're reading on Substack and beyond. If you encounter any issues, you can always refer to the Notes FAQ for assistance.

Thanks for reading Passing Through Digital Babylon. Next week, I will get back to my regularly scheduled chipping away at a book, but who knows? I’m so excited about Notes that I may drop something unexpected between now and then if I have the time.

If you’ve enjoyed this piece, please consider subscribing and sharing with your friends or on your personal social media channels! And remember: together, all of us are passing through this temporary digital empire towards the celestial city.

Austin