@kev I like Buttondown, and Ghost too, but I have exactly the same problem with both: they’re too expensive for large email lists like that of my professional space blog.

@kev

Does Buttondown have RSS integration to publish podcast audio to Apple/Spotify?

I can’t seem to get a straight answer to this.

@kev I would argue, what drives people to substack over any blog platform is the build-in monetization. Anything without payment/subscription fully integrated, is no replacement for substack.

@dvk @kcarruthers @kev @Brendanjones quick point of clarification: we actually very uncool and behind-the-times, at least fashion-wise

@kev @buttondown All true. I need to upgrade to paid; been freeloading too long).

@kev Thanks Kev. So all my writing even on my professional space blog is intentionally free to access because it’s chiefly produced for benefit of lunar and space communities. As such, I make $0 from my subscribers on Substack directly, which are 6,000 and growing. Switching to Ghost and Buttondown is only going to be an expensive recurring cost of either $99/month or $79/month. That’s 60–70% of my physical office space rent just for sending emails. Thanks for letting me know of Sendy. I looked through it and it’s pretty affordable but I just don’t have the time or will to self host and maintain such a service, and also lose the tightly integrated features while at it.

I support my professional writing via organization sponsorships and reader donations, and not paid Substack, Patreon, or any other such subscriptions, and so such expensive alternatives will only eat into either my income or time.

@kev Thanks, I’ll consider this route of asking readers to support my logistical costs. The key challenge to solve here would be that email sending costs keep growing sharply with the number of subscribers. And, since I already ask organizations and individuals for sponsorships and support respectively, doing this would either be a third ask or a voluntary self-choice to incur said costs from wavering general support which doesn’t sound robust.

@kev @pratik Update on the Substack situation: I’ve reached out to Ghost and Buttondown asking if they offer regional pricing that could make the recurring and growing costs reasonably fair for users worldwide in accordance with purchasing power parities. I’m yet to hear back from Ghost but Buttondown is enabling a 50% cut so I’ll be testing it over a week or two to see if it can fit the key needs of my professional space blog. I also reached out to Medium to see if they can solve some blockers but two remain, one of which is that we can’t even import blog archives from anywhere into Medium, including that of Substack. :/

In the meanwhile, I found out that Ghost promotes the Quillette prominently on their Explore page, which is one click away from their homepage.. 🤷🏻‍♂️

@moonmehta GREAT! As @kev said, I’ve heard nothing but good things about Buttondown.

@kev @pratik Thanks! Really hoping it works out. Personally I’m more inclined towards Ghost because it’s an integrated solution like Substack, and it comes the closest to Substack’s slew of genuinely good and many unique features as a technical product.

@kev Yes, I looked into those too! But with self host not an option for me, and each email sending provider coming with its own ifs and buts regardless, I find that a better third option is combining the cheapest $9/month Ghost website hosting with Buttondown’s $40/month for email sending. Not ideal and still expensive but will give it its due consideration.

@moonmehta Hope things work out with Buttondown, they seem like a good org.

@mercymorbid Thanks Mercy!

@osma Hi Osma. You’re right that WordPress doesn’t have subscriber limits even on the free tier. Their Premium plans are affordable too, and even have regional pricing. In fact, my professional space blog was on WordPress.com’s Creator plan previously, which I then migrated to Substack because Gutenberg was so crufty and often unpredictable that I couldn’t focus on doing actual writing and related work there. I re-tried Gutenberg earlier this week, and it still presents so much friction. WordPress seems more and more tailored to site designers than writers. It should be called SitePress at this point. Anyway, there’s another blocker with WordPress.com in particular:

> For people logged into WordPress.com, the platform replaces the default email option with a “Follow” button, which is a separate list. Despite being the blog owner, you can’t export this list and so those followers are tied to your blog being on WordPress forever.

This isn’t an issue with Substack since its publications have no such thing as a native follow, meaning all subscribers constitute a portable email list. And for those with custom domain enabled like me, RSS feeds can be redirected easily as needed based on where one moves.

@kev @pratik

@moonmehta WordPress has a Classic Editor plugin that reverts to the old style and replaces Gutenberg, right?

@pratik Yes, but it’s been increasingly causing issues as new themes, panel sections, and settings rolled out with Gutenberg in mind. I’ve even had instances where Wordpress upgrades frankensteined my posts. Some classic editor posts were forcefully converted to Gutenberg ones with an embedded classic editor block, which screwed up formatting and editing. Wordpress is such a mess.

@moonmehta Ugh! Gutenberg is also why I quit WordPress. That was nearly 8 years ago. Sad to see things have gotten worse.

@pratik Yeah. I’m surprised that no classic Wordpress fork and hosting emerged that took off. I very much hope this won’t be the case with Substack i.e. many genuine replacement options hopefully arrive at all price tiers, and which also carry forward and expand on its great and many unique features. The ongoing situation is certainly a good opportunity for competitors.

@moonmehta oh but there is! Check out ClassicPress. It’s Wordpress without all that editor crap. Cc @pratik

@pcora THAT was what I was thinking about. Thanks! @moonmehta

@pcora Thanks, Pedro! Have you used it? How is it?

Also, ClassicPress seems to be self host only? @pratik

@kev You’re right that Justin is very cool! I’m not even a Buttondown customer yet but he’s already set to deliver a small but key feature I recommended and requested. ✨

@moonmehta not much. I installed and played with it a bit, but my test ended there. If I had to go Wordpress blog, I’d pick ClassicPress though

@stupendousman My blogging is now all on Micro.blog. When you ask where is my personal domain hosted, there are two answers. The main domain is hosted on Blot. But the blogging subdomain is hosted on Micro.blog. The former is mostly static with updates only when I’ve professional/work updates.

I deliberately keep the two separate. The subdomain is blocked from search engines but the main domain is not. Of course, not 100% private but so far, unless you really are hell-bent on finding my blog, you cannot accidentally stumble on it.

@stupendousman You can make the blog on Micro.blog non-indexable. I tested that for a year before moving my former posts to Micro.blog.

But yes, password protection doesn’t exist. Not sure if it will ever.

@stupendousman The private posts are up to you. I do some private journaling in DayOne, but since last year, I’ve been more open about sharing personal things, especially grief, troubles at work, etc. I think not just writing but putting it out there semi-publicly among people who may understand is cathartic. But then again, it may not work for you.