Decentralized Social Media for Writers: does it work?
Should writers have an online democracy? What are the risks and can we come up with a lasting viable solution to maintaining consistent, well-paying work?
Originally posted May 5th, 2023 during the WGA Writer’s Strike and about a year into my time on Substack.
Why “decentralization?”
Why would a social media platform want to be “decentralized?” Generally, because it would be easier to ensure that user experience remains a top priority over profit, more people would be attracted to the platform, driving up its value and subsequent profits. Secondly, and more importantly, it puts some level of executive power in the user’s hand in shaping the future of the platform. Basically, “decentralized” social media strives to become an online democracy of sorts.
Nowhere is this appreciated more in the creative worker spheres by those who wish to make a living off their creative pursuits. For writers especially, we need a place not only to show off what we can do but make some money doing it too. Right now, the most effective thing you can do to get work as a writer (and the way you’re most advised to do it) is to – right off the bat – rack up an impressive portfolio, reel, or résumé and apply for jobs without a lot to show for it. The other is collaborating with other writers on company blogs and publications. This was the way I was pressured to start my writing career online in 2016.
My lack of success (and I’m sure countless others ) aside, it was so encouraging to find a social media platform where I could immediately start writing and publishing on the internet on my own. I gained a small readership and it only helped build my waning confidence in my own work and strengthened my idea that “yeah, I really do want this for a career.” The unfortunate side of this is that I started on StoryFire.
StoryFire’s blunder
For those who are unaware, StoryFire was and is a social media platform designed for video content creators and writers. It began as a writing platform before video content was integrated into the website and this was a direct result of the “ad-pocalypse” on Youtube circa 2015. Long story short, it was a small, tight-knit, and creative community where you were encouraged to post anything you want and still have the opportunity to monetize that content. Over the years, community reps, moderators, and even a voting system for who would gain video-uploading access were integrated to better protect the users from harmful content and liken the prospects of real monetization. Yes, there wasn’t real monetization on the platform for a long time, and depending on who you ask, there still isn’t.
StoryFire became a dead end for writers long before it became a crypto-bro haven for malcontents, but it was a place to start a publishing and writing habit with a handful of supportive and dedicated readers. I really started everything there. I had a website, but that didn’t garner me a community of people I could connect with and sometimes commiserate with.
Substack as the alternative
After ditching “dumpster-fire StoryFire,” I came to Substack. It was just starting to get some big names on the platform and I now had a new place to localize my content in all its forms. Here you can earn subscriptions right out the gate and publish audio and video, so it was already lightyears ahead of StoryFire. It seemed small as well, though I knew there were tons of writers already here. It felt secure, and perhaps it would grow and become a wonderful place for writers.
Today, that is still my hope. But what could Substack do that could jeopardize all that and defile this beautiful and much-needed writer haven?
Well, one topic has come up that sounded familiar to me about two weeks ago: decentralization.
Sensationalizing content is profitable
Decentralization of StoryFire didn’t save it from becoming an alt-right, manosphere, crypto-bro hellhole, so I was concerned about what the founders of Substack, Chris Best, and Hamish McKenzie were pushing for here. In theory, yes, a small online democracy where writers can publish what they care about and make money doing it right from the start and directly from subscribers sounds exactly like the perfect and viable solution. Here is where things didn’t add up though. You cannot have a successful community platform online without some very clear moderating rules.
What happened most on StoryFire, and happens all around us no matter where we go online, is the most controversial and upsetting content gets the most clicks and views. This doesn’t mean that only bad things get all the attention online, but we do live in a time where news and media have to be sensationalized to grab enough attention to make any sort of substantial impact, and with that impact comes profit. We writers know this struggle all too well, we live with that reality every single day. As a high schooler, I was discouraged from pursuing an English degree in college and going for Journalism instead. Why? Because that was the only way I’d make any money writing. Journalists are not the most prolific and respected writers, but they are the most consistently employed and paid. Authors and screenwriters (fiction writers) only stand to make a larger profit than journalists if they win the book lottery and come out with a best seller, which yeah, you might have a better chance of winning the actual lottery than that happening anytime soon.
Moderation is essential
But enough of that, how can decentralization hurt Substack? Well, for one, the founders and those who invest in Substack, seem to want to take a step back, or are at least encouraged to, from making executive decisions on a realistic scale; they want to get out of the writers’ way to allow the users to run the democracy as it were. This would mean that users have to enforce and protect the moderation policy.
And what about the moderation policy? Do the writers create that? Do the founders? Is it resolute or will it change often? Without any clear moderation or terms of use policy in place, the platform will quickly devolve into a mess of arguments and possibly truly harmful material that will gain notoriety on this platform. And remember, the most threatening voice in the room will be what people pay attention to.
From the outside, Substack will look a lot like a platform that endorses the most off-putting (I’m not saying “politically incorrect”), depraved, and otherwise harmful ideals and content, paying these writers and creators who wish to spew hatred and division instead of other honest, substantial work. News and journalism are a part of this too, but that stuff is everywhere on the internet. At the end of the day, would Substack just become another StoryFire or Twitter? With the new integration of “Notes,” that might very well be the case.
Notes and the Twitter connection
Notes is the newest tool for writers on Substack, and act as a sort of recommendations social feed. But much like any social feed, it resembles the Twitter model. So much so that Twitter recently banned the use of Substack links on their platform and has made claims that sound like a lot like they think that Substack is coming to replace Twitter.
No matter how you feel about Twitter, in the not-so-distant past, it was a behemoth of internet correspondence and entertainment. Twitter was a vast ocean of unhindered journalism until very recently; the last 7 years of world politics and history would look very different if Twitter hadn’t played a vital role. Whether we like it or not, we’re in an internet and digital age, and Twitter helped solidify that.
What Twitter started, others seek to finish. Substack Notes functions almost the same as the Twitter feed, which means that more and more people coming to Substack will find it easiest to use the tool as a Twitter feed, and not as the recommendations tool that it’s intended to be. No matter what the intentions are from Best, McKenzie, and the Substack team, you can’t expect to become a prolific online platform with little to no moderation and have things work the way you designed them to. People won’t use the Notes feature the way it’s intended, they’ll tweet all the things they would on Twitter. And with little to no clear moderation, that can get really ugly really fast. It will cease to be the writer subscription utopia that it’s meant to be.
Writers still struggle
Decentralized or not, we writers still face an impossible uphill battle for career sustainability. Just a few days ago, the Writer’s Guild of America, the largest and most prestigious professional writers union went on strike because of fewer work hours, lower pay, and losing their credited work to the new threat of AI. It’s already hard enough out here to make a living writing, apparently even if you’re at the top, writing for late-night TV or for a new Disney+ show. Writers need a viable outlet to build a lasting career, without the interference of new tech taking over or businesses stealing their work and not paying them for it. And yes, in its current evolution, AI steals writing from real-life writers that it can find online. It isn’t only writers too, I’ve seen some creepy stuff from video and music editors being replaced by an AI tool. It’s not looking good out there for creative workers.
So yeah, will writers ever be fully appreciated for everything we do? Well, the outcome of the WGA strike looks like the one thing right now that might give us an answer.
So, what do we do?
So if I were to leave you with anything in this rambling article, it would be this: Social media decentralization only works as well as the most prolific and influential voices allow it to. Real-life writers still go unappreciated, and with these new tools at our disposal, are we going to give in to the new technological way or will we strive to value the hard-won words and backlog of creative writers and producers?
Readers, listeners, and viewers, you make the call.
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References that helped this article
Discord Basic Moderation Guidelines
