Administered by:
File under: digital media literacy
The great @molly0xfff has a mini-thread up on Bluesky revealing how her Substack dashboard shows steady growth... despite the fact she stopped using that platform a year and a half ago: https://bsky.app/profile/molly.wiki/post/3ltd6biesvk2r
Substack's "network effect" may be an illusion. More on this here: https://bsky.app/profile/molly.wiki/post/3ltd6fud6jc2r
I'm really happy I left SS for Ghost in January 2024 and I never looked back... and yes, the abbreviation is not that coincidental
: https://news.elenarossini.com/this-is-what-resistance-to-the-digital-coup-looks-like/
@_elena @molly0xfff I had a similar experience. Even after I sent a goodbye email, I kept getting new subscribers almost every day.
I tried to fix that, but Substack's help page says that there is no way to keep the sent issues published while simultaneously removing the subscribe button. So I ended up deleting the entire newsletter.
I see why they do that now.
@vladcampos I'm also getting regular signups on my inactive newsletter where I deleted ALL my posts and only left one that mentioned moving away from Substack to Ghost
@_elena @molly0xfff
#Substack is the new #LinkedIn, where only dumbass boomers use it, and think it's actually reflecting some form of reality, creating an echo chamber of like minded idiots.
, the Profit Ouroboros strikes again). It was estimated by Imperva Threat Research last year that over 50% of all internet traffic is not by humans.@growfediverse wow, thank you for sharing this! Fascinating. And now their pivot to gen AI makes so much sense
The irony is that the same thing reportedly happens on #Bluesky, where a steady stream of new bot followers keep people happy.
@mastodonmigration @_elena @molly0xfff I have 10x the followers and zero engagement. I've even posted spam to not get it reported.
@joe I also have ZERO engagement on Bluesky - with 1k followers. Well used to have, I'm not posting there anymore. I'm thinking of resuming sharing my posts there (the POSSE method) to compare and contrast things with the fediverse.
@_elena The people who are active are a strange bunch of middle aged people who I think use the platform to mark the milestones of the day. Each morning there are tons of Good Morning posts and at night they say good night to each other. And make starter packs. Daily.
@_elena @molly0xfff @andypiper I moved over to Ghost a couple of months ago and have seen zero growth - but I'm much happier with it as a platform (and yes, very apt SS reference!)
@kestral I've also noticed that growth on Ghost has been a lot slower but at least all my followers are real people (instead of bots)
@_elena Do ad impressions on Twitter next, @molly0xfff!
@alwirtes and ad impressions on Meta platforms!
I'm totally convinced most of the activity comes from bot farms and advertisers are getting scammed
@_elena @molly0xfff Me, too! That was the real reason Twitter/X couldn’t eliminate bots.
Why on Bluesky, Molly 
@EloPup @_elena @molly0xfff There is a special irony to that isn't there?
All this talk about escaping from pro-nazi VC-backed centralized networks -- and then of course here's a link to a thread that is only on a pro-nazi VC-backed centralized network.
Which means I can't see what it says because I do not click on bluesky links.