Why Blocked And Reported Moved To Substack
We're happy to be here!
(Thank you to ChocoRaisinBoi from our subreddit for the very useful infographic touching on some of our most precious shared internet heritage.)
Earlier today we announced to our premium supporters on Patreon that we’ll be migrating our entire operation here, to Substack. There are a bunch of reasons. One is dissatisfaction with Patreon’s website, which is buggy, inflexible, and which has been a big headache for us and some of our subscribers since the beginning. Switching to Substack will allow for much better community features, annual memberships, and a lot of other stuff that we honestly should have been able to offer listeners all along. In terms of speed, smoothness, and ease of functionality, there’s no comparison between the two platforms, and we’re excited to take advantage of our new, much snazzier home.
But there’s a bigger reason, too: Patreon’s commitment to free speech and open discourse is about as strong as Jesse on a wrestling mat. As long as we do this podcast — and we hope to do it for a very long time — there will be a risk of one of us (let’s be honest: Katie) saying something that offends the Patreon gods, which could potentially lead to us being kicked off. We are not saying there have been any concrete threats on this front. We are saying that we view it as a legitimate concern and something that nudged us out the door a bit.
The short of it is, we feel that Substack is a better home for us both technologically and ideologically, and so we’re making the leap.
This is a risk for us! We have to rebuild our base of paying subscribers from scratch. But we think it’s a risk worth taking.
Our current subscribers, early indications suggest, are already migrating in droves. If you’re new to the podcast, we hope you’ll check us out here in our new, much snazzier digs. Feel free to peruse our archives, which include almost a hundred free episodes, or to read more about us on our About page, which contains details on what a paid subscription — that’s just $4.50 per month and up — will get you.
And if any of this whets your appetite for more, please consider subscribing or buying a gift subscription for a friend:
Thank you!
-Katie and Jesse
Long time listener, first time subscriber, so this move pushed at least one freeloader into the paid column.
Glad to see you make the move, not only for technical reasons, but because I like to see a company lose business for wavering on free speech, and another gain from supporting it.