Open source Substack rival Ghost may join the fediverse | TechCrunch
Open source Substack rival Ghost may join the fediverse | TechCrunch
While the launch of a survey isn't necessarily a commitment to federating Ghost, it is another signal pointing to the broader reshaping of the web that's now underway.
Again they are naming Fediverse services and not mentioning Lemmy! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
which is kind of shocking because I feel like lemmy is one of the fediverse "replacements" that most easily replaces.
I feel like most others don't always "scratch that itch" that some of there closed source rivals do. But honestly the only thing at this point imo that lemmy has going against it is the smaller user base and therefore lack of as niche of communities
Lemmy is still very much in its infancy. It's not even reached version 1.0 yet. While we've all been on here for a while now, its future is still very much uncertain and hasn't seen anywhere near the adoption that Mastodon and other microblog Fedi platforms have.
Not a bad option, but what are the potential advantages over using the Pages feature of Misskey forks, or simply Wordpress?
Substack itself didn't even present a correct UI to me on mobile so I never bothered with it when it was initially popularized. Still seems to have the issue, too.
One advantage over wordpress is that it avoids bringing its parent company, Automatic, into the Fediverse.
From Wikipedia:
In February 2024, Automattic announced that it would begin selling user data from Tumblr and WordPress to Midjourney and OpenAI.
I thought that was only about wordpress.com blogs not selfhosted wordpress, though?
That's a dealbreaker for me, I may consider badgering people in my Wordpress RSS folder to ditch it, on a case-by-case basis. Even liberals are sensitive to AI stuff because it upsets them to see Journalism Infringed
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I consider wordpress open core at best these days.
A lot of really basic features like lightboxes that should be in core are in their "jetpack" SaaS plugin. This by default sends automattic a whole bunch of telemetry, which I assume they are now selling to OpenAI, and puts ads in your dashboard for other commercial SaaS features.
There's also the fact that they don't allow forks of open source plugins in their plugin repository.
That's really good to know, thanks, I'd assumed they were a shitty blob company until I heard they were adding federation, but I guess that intuition was correct. Sounds almost Threads-tier.
Not a bad option, but what are the potential advantages over using the Pages feature of Misskey forks
Didn't know that Misskey forks have this Pages feature. Found this https://darnell.day/hey-tumblr-and-medium-fediverse-lovers-its-time-to-misskey which explains a bit about it. Is Misskey still actively developed ? Is there an overview of the forks ?
FediDB is really the best way to look around for servers. Totally being actively developed, there's way too many forks IMHO, but I'm sure the project maintainers would disagree for the time being.
Misskey.io seems to have range banned a lot of stuff so it's not a good demo instance. You can't translate the Japanese posts while logged out, either!
Still seems pretty uncertain. I saw a chat between ghost CEO and some activity pub dev trying to convince him to federate … this was around the time of Newtons move off of substack … and the vibe was about the same then … “cool idea, unsure about viability, how would it work?”
Seems it’s such a common almost meme-ish user demand now that the request hasn’t let up. Given that Wordpress has done it I’d guess the idea is probably a no-brainer … just do it!
Problem though is the kinda-literal elephant in the room … mastodon. The only fediverse platform mentioned in the article. Federating with it requires implementing a “user” actor where everything is organised around users like on microblogging platforms. It’s what Wordpress did and what Ghost will too.
Which is a shame because us group based platforms get left behind, mastodon controls the fediverse, and the utility of grouping things, which makes a lot of sense for things like multi-author blogs, gets forgotten.
I wonder if there is cludgy workaround to make groups just another user for the rest of the fediverse
AFAIU, that's how lemmy federates content to mastodon.
If you didn't know, you can follow lemmy communities (and other groups) on mastodon, but the appear as users constantly "boosting" everything that happens in the community and so can quickly clog up your feed.
Mastodon now has exclusive lists though, which take everything that appears in the list out of your home feed, which is a nice way of managing it.
In fact, for a community I moderate, I've got a mastodon list just for that community, which gives me a reverse chronological feed of everything that happens in the community ... which is actually useful and not quite available from the interface (as you posts and comments have to be viewed separately, which isn't bad really).
Notable blog using (self-hosted) Ghost: Molly White's Citation Needed.
Here's a blog post where she details the process of migrating from Substack to Ghost.
This is Ghost, the open source blog software. Color me surprised.
It is a great step forward, but the barrier to entry is relatively high. You can sign up to substack for free and they take a cut of your profits (that most writers don't draw enough attention to earn.
Meanwhile ghost charges $9 a month, billed annually.
That's a significant barrier to anyone that can't afford to see if their writing will be popular and as long as that remains it will struggle to gain traction in the same way.
And yeah, I know you could host your own too, but again a price point and a technical barrier.
I like ghost, the interface and the ecology, but the truth is that it isn't going to attract the sort of vibrant, young community it needs if you have to stump up $108 just to see.
I think one of the great things about 2000s/early 2010s internet was the proliferation of free to use platforms like livejournal, blogger and WordPress. Sure there was a lot or jank, but I found some of my favourite writers back when they were scratching their name into the internet.
Very valid points. Medium and Substack will remain popular due to how easy it makes it
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Ghost, the open source alternative to Substack’s newsletter platform, is considering joining the fediverse, the social network of interconnected servers that includes apps like Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Flipboard and, more recently, Instagram Threads, among others.
While the launch of a survey isn’t necessarily a commitment to federating Ghost, it is another signal pointing to the broader reshaping of the web that’s now underway.
Ghost has gained attention as a Substack rival in recent months for the same reason that some have fled X: People disagree about how platforms should be moderated.
Substack has taken to promoting free speech, as Musk does on X, but that’s also led to the platform being used by pro-Nazi publications, as detailed by The Atlantic late last year.
“I’m not aware of any major U.S. consumer internet platform that does not explicitly ban praise for Nazi hate speech, much less one that welcomes them to set up shop and start selling subscriptions,” Newton wrote at the time.
In addition to Newton, other notable Ghost users include 404 Media, Buffer, Kickstarter, David Sirota’s The Lever and Tangle, to name a few.
The original article contains 678 words, the summary contains 184 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Ghost is a creepy name. They should change it.
It's doing quite well and you're the only person I've ever seen take offense to the name, so I guess you'll just have to cope with spooky newsletters 👻
Wraith, Spectre and Banshee were all taken.