Don't Call It A Substack.

Back in 2024, Anil Dash published Don't Call it a Substack - an informative post about Substack's problematic history and foundations. This sums it up nicely:

Substack is, just as a reminder, a political project made by extremists with a goal of normalizing a radical, hateful agenda by co-opting well-intentioned creators' work in service of cross-promoting attacks on the vulnerable.

That may sound like an extreme review but the receipts are in the post. It's well noted on Wikipedia too, Substack allows Nazi content "because attempting to censor them would make the problem worse." Great, right? /s

Dash's post points to some alternatives but I will provide you with an updated list for 2026 - Finding a budget-conscious Substack alternative. Not only are these in the list budget-conscious, they aren't looking the other way when it comes to Nazi's (that I know of). TLDR: look at Buttondown and Email Octopus.

I am sure there is a bit of fatigue when it comes to thinking about what is a "Good" platform. Meta is a nightmare company but I still use Instagram. I left Spotify because of unfair artist treatment but I use YouTube Music instead... is Google really a "good" company? I left Twitter when Elon took over and, well, I do feel good about that one. Substack feels like a benign example when compared to the worst offenders but I bring this up just so you are aware. It's worth considering going elsewhere.