Category: WebsitesCategory: Websites

Never forget that corporate vultures swooped in and wrecked blog culture with their SEO posts and 13 display ads, and said “wow, blogs suck now!”

Then those crooks rolled out their shiny social media platforms – “wow, so clean! Who even needs a website?!? LOL!”

Now everyone’s ideas and posts were readable, without pop ups or takeover ads. It was bliss!

But the pivot to video (which was based on a lie) got writers fired. Sites shuttered because social media sites throttled links.

We’re learning everyday that maybe centralized kingdoms of power maybe aren’t great.

The decentralized internet is already here in the form of domain names, websites, email lists, and RSS feeds. We don’t need to wait for anyone, we can just decide today where we spend out time and energy.

I’m a big fan of one-page websites, and How To Leave Substack is one such site.

We’re discovering more and more that centralized kingdoms of power are not the answer. Especially when such a platform has no back ups of your work when you inadvertently delete something, or when they send a push notification with a fucking swastika, or goes quiet while a known Substack Bestseller is accused of plagiarism.

I understand the “Asking Authors To Move” section of the How To Leave Substack website. But trust me, moving ain’t easy, as Tara McMullin wrote about this back in “Substack Has a Nazi Problem” era (Nov 2023),

“There’s the work that goes directly into making a move—researching the options, exporting and importing old content, learning how to use the platform, designing your profile or site, moving your audience, etc. There’s also the work that goes into establishing yourself within the network of a new platform, answering questions from your audience about the new platform, and figuring out what kind of content is going to work best on this new platform.”

It took me a solid month or two just to export my paid members to Memberful. I was afraid I’d break something, that some setting would be left un-checked and I’d double charge my members. Or have to refund everyone.

Working with Substack, turns out, is precarious.

There’s a lot of people who probably want to move, but many don’t even know what the options are at. But trust me, I’m telling lots of current Substack authors that they can move their paid members to Memberful.

Looking to move your paid subscribers off of Substack? I’ve moved mine to Memberful.
Got questions? Book a 1:1 call here, or explore my Email Guidance offering.

Angela Hollowell (Please Hustle Responsibly) and I talk about stepping back from algorithm-driven platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram to build slower, calmer, more sustainable creative practices.

Angela on her reason to spend less time on LinkedIn:

“I’m not tempted to leave LinkedIn because my LinkedIn reach has gone down. I’m tempted to leave LinkedIn and posting on any social media platform regularly because of the time that it takes for me to do that when I could be spending more time writing a better long-form article

Me on websites:

“I think curation is the big part of of like you came to my website and this is someone asked me like oh well why doesn’t my website my website doesn’t get the same engagement as as say a LinkedIn. Well yeah cuz LinkedIn is built for engagement. There’s all these things to click and do and this whereas your most websites are just like here’s a big picture here’s eight links here. What do you want me to engage with?”

Angela on doing the work, rather than writing everyday on LinkedIn:

“The thing I’m most known for now, and where I’m getting a lot more recognition as a writer, producer, and film director—is from (my documentary). Way more than I did in four years of writing every day on social media. Yeah, that project took me six months to make, and then another year basically doing a film festival circuit. But it has paid off exponentially. I try to remind myself of that when I start thinking, “Oh, I should post this on LinkedIn.” It’s like—no, I shouldn’t, actually. I should let it cook.

And this is me, talking about spending less time on social media, and seeing where that can lead:

“I started doing my my weekly Zoom calls with my paid members like a year and a half ago and let me say, when I started them I was scared out of my mind. Like, “who who am I to like host Zoom calls?” Now I get like 10 to 15 people. I had six or seven this morning at the last minute. It’s amazing. But like, that work and not being on social media and doing that kind of quiet ,behind the scenes thing… now I’m ready for whatever.”

I hope you get something from this chat! If you have questions, please get in touch: seth@socialmediaescape.club

Recorded live on Substack, July 28 2025.

The deal with a blog is simple. You show up, and the author says “here’s where we’re starting today.”

You open Instagram, the algorithm says “here’s where we’re starting today.”

Many modern websites say “you decide.”

As Seth Godin recently wrote:

A disciplined menu structure doesn’t limit user choice, it increases it.

Where are we starting today?

CJ Chilvers has a slightly more PG-13 way of saying this (do shit that doesn’t scale), and provides some great examples in the meantime:

• I’ve seen an author put his phone number on the front cover of his book.
• I’ve seen newsletters set up booths at events just to subscribe a few dozen people — because both parties know each other are real and engaged.
• I went to a bar to meet the inventor of podcasting. He asked people to show up to discuss his podcast and what was on their minds — maybe a dozen or so did. That was more than a decade ago and we’re still telling our readers about it.
• I traveled seven hours to meet at a bar with two like-minded content creators. It led to several podcast episodes, countless blog posts ideas, and an event.

See the rest on his website. As I said back in 2024:

“Yeah, but Seth, I just want to post my thing (on social media) and go do other things,” you might say.

Well, you see the results that “just posting” gets you.

Also, how can talking to your fans, audience, and readers be a waste of time?

Setting a timer for 15 minutes and communicating with real people five days a week will probably get you more results than the hour you spend making one Reel for 153 “people” to see (and which will never be seen again after 12 hours).

Does it scale? Fuck scale, do the work.

It’s tempting to find a shortcut, a “growth hack.” But doing the thing that seems slightly uncomfortable (or absurd) stands to make more of an impact, like our Social Media Escape Club member Jes talking about handing out their email list on a clipboard during a show. That led to 35 new people signing up.

Does that scale? Nope. Do it anyways.