Saturshot is Moving
You might have heard why many people are leaving Substack. If not, Jude Ellison Sadie Doyle explains, in their post In Queers We Trust. All Others Pay Cash.
Those bylines themselves are not the problem. Self-publishing platforms can’t control who signs up. Substack isn’t a self-publishing platform, though. It curates its writers. It pays them, sometimes massively, and it makes choices as to who gets paid well and who doesn’t. We’ve seen instances of tech companies allowing hate group leaders to acquire huge followings through negligence, from white supremacist YouTube stars to a President who has to be banned from Twitter for trying to start a civil war, but those were cases where the platforms failed to keep bigots out. Substack is actively bringing the bigots in. Then it’s giving them paychecks.
So where is Substack getting the money to pay the TERFs? Simple: From me.
I don’t personally get money from this, but I don’t want to contribute to “Substack” being synonymous with “newsletter” for people who will. A lot of writers are picking this up, and it’s not a service I want to advertise.
In the meantime, I’ll be moving to Medium. I can’t import my current subscribers, so if you’d like to keep reading Saturshot, you’ll need to sign up there. On the upside, because Medium works differently, you can subscribe to just read online, if you prefer.
Edit: I am not moving to Medium! I apologise for the change in direction, but I didn’t realise at the time that it required people to make accounts on its website just to follow a newsletter. This was way too much of an ask, and I’ve found a new host. If you’re subscribed here, you’ll continue to just recieve emails in your inbox, as is, no new sign ups needed.
Oh, Also
If this is somehow the first one of these you’ve clicked on (hi!) you’ll find my back catalogue here, if you need your mind making up about whether to follow me to a new platform. This isn’t usually what the newsletter looks like.
For one thing, it often ends with a cat tweet.
Ruth Cassidy is a writer and self-described velcro cyborg who, when not writing about video games, is probably being emotional about musicals, mountains, or cats. Has had some bylines, in some places.