tcg550? Just going off the pets and animals thread…
Yup.
I had a quick look when the word came down. “Hmmm, interesting. I’ve heard of this ‘substack’ thing but know nothing about it.” I could see by the garishness of the ads on BB that things weren’t good, and if this saved them, yay.
Then I had a look. It… doesn’t work.
Then I found out about the Nazi Bar thing.
I’ll pass.
This place feels better.
Deleting this one.
Hai, @MerelyGifted!
And thank you, @Tammi_2.0! You (well, a bunch of you) were going to be getting a teary thank you/goodbye note this week, but now I’m not sure what to do with myself. But I feel like you threw me a lifeline. Thank you, thank you.
It’s all good. Catch your breath, we’re all a bit frazzled this week.
It’s nice to have you here
that one, sad banana tree.
SuS is where a lot of the independent journalists are now, I think. SuS does have a lot of progressive content, like Ken said. Even I read three people there (Erininthemorning, Heather Cox Richardson, Wonkette)
If Frauenfelder wants to continue to expand his career as a journalist, he may feel that’s the place for it. He never seemed to value the community much, so it probably wasn’t a big factor for him. SuS will provide monetization, a forum for commenting on articles, and maybe more respectability than a website so infested with ads it is unreadable.
I’m not sure it will work. It seems most of the journalists and analysts there have all or some content for free and rely on people just giving money as they can and wish.
Journalist?
Lifestyle fluffer, maybe.
Deleting this one.
I’m just joining this clubhouse today, but yeah. The Substack move is a very hard pill to swallow, i think what’s really bumming me out was that it had been made known that the people in the community would’ve been happy to pay to keep things going but they’re going about it like this? Yikes. Also where is the communication with the userbase/readership? That seems like a pretty base level thing to do, you should START there and get people on your side and that just hasn’t been done. I get that Ken has been busting his ass to get us taken care of but he’s not the one calling the shots and the silence from above has really cut me deep.
Honestly i’m supremely bummed out. I’m glad y’all are here making things work and keeping part of the community together, it means a lot to me but this decision to nuke the BBS… i just don’t get it. But i’ve gotten the sense for the past few years that the authors and contributors haven’t really been invested in things for a while.
The vision to take Substack’s money and make things work just seems too rushed, though honestly i don’t care to know what the truth of the matter is because no matter what the reasoning behind it sucks. I wanted to give things a chance but the more time goes by i realize that i just can’t. That site is just not made for me and i don’t feel wanted or needed there.
Thanks again for extending a hand to me here. Hope to remain a good community member and contributor.
A nice note is never unappreciated, whether necessary or not!
Alright, but if things get awkward over there, just pretend that me over here is a different internet dog/rescue person.
Ya, couldn’t remember them that well…
Ya, my only boing boing interaction has been via the thread where folks post about their pets - it’s good for my mental health.
I run a small business. I’m certain it’s about the money.
Boing Boing stayed afloat as a site for over 25 years, through bubble bursts and recessions and all sorts of new and unforeseen competition. You can’t do that if you’re not - at least partially - thinking about the money. I don’t believe that’s a bad thing - they did good things while collecting a paycheck.
But from the outside, it looked like it was getting harder and harder to pay the bills. Which seems to be a common story from a lot of websites sites since 2017-ish.
BB’s fall from Internet Powerhouse in the aughts to its current Semi-Obscure Website status is a wretched thing. Watching the ads get weirder and more intrusive was a bad sign. The composition of the articles got more click-bait and rage-bait. The link to “Comments” at the bottom of articles disappeared outright some time in the past month or so. I didn’t connect the dots at the time, but looking back I’m pretty sure I’m reading them correctly now.
“There’s not enough money in it anymore, and they’ve gotta eat too” is how I’m reading it. The BB crew aren’t Elno or Zuck; they worked hard to make a good thing. Maybe I’m being too generous about their motives, but it really feels like the writing was already on the wall. I hate how we found out, and it’s churned up a surprising amount of grief in me (not a lot compared to losing a person, but more than I expected).
But the closing has a brutal logic of things bigger than BB.
Moving to a place that also platforms nazis… I hear what Orenwolf says about how hard it is to find nazi-free infrastructure. But I really don’t agree with the move.
If they simply closed up, I hate it but I’ll understand. If there was also a data sale, I will be very upset. Maybe if we follow Xeni’s social accounts until her NDA expires we’ll find out.
We know you will, Dawling!
I’m sure it was an executive decision by Jason
This is my wish. I did go to BB for the interesting and weird articles, loved when science and interesting studies were mentioned, etc. I didn’t mind the political and current event articles as i appreciated the perspective but ultimately not what i was there for.
I suppose i’ll just have to make sure to share with you guys the weird, funny and interesting stuff i stumble onto rather than wait for it to be presented to me. And i’m sure you guys will have things to share So in a way i can see that as a positive