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Maybe I'm moving (back)
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IMPORTANT: Really sorry, I've changed tech again. Please hit the unsubscribe button if you don't want to get this newsletter anymore. You can also hit reply and ask questions!
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You’re getting this newsletter because I switched to Substack about 3 months ago.
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I started thinking about moving my newsletter to Substack over a year ago, maybe even two. It was winter, Substack had good attention and good writers. I remember Xmas decorations. I didn’t move to Substack at that time. As per usual, my stupid principles and personal politics got in the way. There were one too many blogposts on the internet from people who said that Substack supported hateful views. At the time, it was a lot of LGBT+ folks who were writing “F Substack”.
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I have inconvenienced myself with my tech principles for decades at this point. It takes days for my local bookshops to send me books because I try very hard to not use Amazon. I am not a part of several family and friend What’sApp groups because I loathe anything Facebook is or touches. I have, for decades, tried to live up to my values, fought for the open web and made technology choices that align with who I am and what I believe in.
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A few months ago, I moved to Substack after Doug got unsubscribed from MailPoet for the 700th time. I was just so frustrated by the fact that one of my biggest fans (and RDR2 enemy) kept having to backchannel “I would love to read your newsletter but…” Not to mention that others probably experienced the same thing. Doug moved Thought Shrapnel, Audrey Watters put her new work on Substack, I just said “screw it, Laura, let’s have a little convenience for once.” I moved to Substack on October 19, 2023. I'm now moving back to using MailPoet hosted on my own site.
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There's no reason for any of you to have followed the hibdibery of the Substack Saga over the last couple of weeks. I didn’t follow it either so much as it followed me. Long story short – the corporate shitfuckery of the tech bro internet is as it has always been, and Substack decided to jump into a fray with anti-Laura shaped behaviour. On the one hand, I kind of agree with the “We’re not going anywhere, the Nazi’s can fuck off” approach from some Substack users. But Substack is corporate tech and at the end of the day the owners of Substack have shown us who they are, so I’ll go ahead and believe them.
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Maybe I am
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So what is the web? Is it a series of living rooms? Or a public park? Is it a fraught and dangerous haven for Nazis and wokeism? Or is it simply a complex network of media that tries very hard but ultimately poorly represents what it feels like to be conscious and alive? At the end of the day, the web is a (series of) tool(s) and like a pencil or a hammer, it's what we do with our tools that matter.
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My research on what to do about FBT led to a can of worms with server admin and stuff that I…don’t want to deal with AT ALL. It's 2024 though, so I did things. Hopefully, none of my tinkering has proven an inconvenience to you, dear friend.
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Over the past weeks I've been a variety of versions of me. I was super sick for more than half my break, and the other half I didn't have the energy to "fix" whatever isn't really broken. I just was, and I hope you just were too.
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Maybe I need help?
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It's not a resolution, but my intention for this year is to just have fun. There's enough serious, enough pain, enough suffering. We don't have to be anything more than we are, it's enough, and I, my friends, am said to be fun. So I'm going to be and have fun as much as possible. What about you?
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