It's time to say goodbye to Substack.

This is my last post here!

I came to Substack for a newsletter, but Substack is not that anymore.

As I pointed out many months ago, what started as a newsletter platform is now a social media site. It's not a matter of principle, ethics, or anything like that. The issue is technical. I see more and more people “following” me instead of subscribing via email. Ultimately, this means that Substack will soon have full control over our future relationship. Whatever they decide, we'll have to accept it.

It also means that Substack is moving in a direction that is contrary to many of my beliefs about a free and open web and federated social media. Which, by the way, is the direction Ghost chose. I applaud them, but no, I'm not moving to Ghost.

As you read this, I have already moved all the emails to the new system hosted by my website provider. If everything goes according to plan, the next time you receive an email from me, it will come from there. Similar to what happens today, every time I post an article, you'll get an email. But they will now be coming from:

vladcampos@hello.micro.blog

To make sure you get my emails, you may want to add the above to your address book and set it to not-spam.

I would prefer not to delete all the posts and the newsletter, but according to Substack, there's no way to stop offering the subscription option (button). So, a least for now, I'll do my best to make it clear everywhere that this newsletter will not be sent anymore.

As for the Substack Notes, I'll do my best to keep posting them.

Finally, since this is not a real goodbye, I'll talk to you soon 😉

Have a lovely rest of Sunday, Vlad.