An open letter to Substack creators

originally published as a Substack Note

An open letter to everyone here who likes Substack, the idea more than Substack, the company and increasingly enshittified product:

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I’ve long admired Substack. I read hundreds of writers on this platform. But these days I’m here reluctantly. I can’t bring myself to write here. Every time I open the app something makes me bristle. If you, too, don’t love…

how Substack’s going hard on walled garden

seeing the app turning into TikTok (wtf?)

feature bloat and pop-ups and paywalls everywhere

We're making Leaflet, a social publishing platform for blogs / newsletters — like Substack, but more open, and frankly just nicer to use.

It’s not a clone, but something new. We’re trying to make publishing fun. To capture the personal internet, the simple lightweight social web.

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We believe in the power of open social publishing.

The web and email run on open protocols. Blogs and newsletters should too. Leaflet’s open source, but more importantly, built on open foundations.

We’re building on the AT Protocol, which powers Bluesky as well as dozens of emerging apps, all interoperable. An open publishing ecosystem means:

Open data: interoperable, not locked in a walled garden

Open network: a built in network of readers and writers

Open distribution: network effects shared across the ecosystem

There are also different feedback loops at play: with a closed network there’s evolutionary pressure to extract and exploit; with an open network, feedback loops push towards interconnectedness and shared ownership.

Of course I’m biased. But the point is…you’ve got options! You own your data and your identity; if you want you can make your own Leaflet frontend or even a whole different app. That’s just not possible here on Substack.

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If this vision resonates, give Leaflet a try!

Make a publication at leaflet.pub/home — make as many as you like, with custom domains and themes…all free!

We’re in alpha; some key features like email subscriptions, payments, and social sharing are coming soon. Lots to build; a big task ahead.

Leaflet will soon be a solid alternative — to start, maybe not for the Substack 1% slinging podcasts and what-have-you, but for the rest of us.

What'd make you excited to switch? If you’re on here but interested in trying something new, we’d love to hear from you!