On one hand, the simplicity of something like Substack is tempting. I just want to focus on writing.
But if I go that route, every post will be invisible to Google, trapped inside their ecosystem. I'll be renting my audience on someone else's land.
The alternative is a WordPress blog, but wrestling with plugins and updates on top of writing every week feels overwhelming.
For those of you who have been down this road:
1. If you were starting over today, what would you do? 2. Is the discoverability problem on closed platforms as bad as I'm imagining, or am I overthinking it?
DaveZale•1h ago
Years ago, I used google blogspot quite a bit. After every post was published, the first hit came from a server in Germany. Maybe a mirror or surveillance bot? I'll never know. But sure, it's a little spooky to be training AI with every post, and not knowing whose AI, and it's annoying to not be compensated. I've trained a lot of technical people over the years and it paid well. With the AI we get nothing.
Hey if you have enough interesting material, why not write a print book?