On the infrastructure choices for Save Point

In this post I'll go over my thought process and choices for the infrastructure that supports this newsletter. I think it is important to be transparent about these details as the technology we use has many implications.

My main motivation to have a newsletter is to get off Instagram. I've explained some of the reasons in the About page, but in short, I find the site to have many problems such as violations of privacy, addictive algorithms, censorship, and that it causes the deterioration of my mental health by feeding me bad news and inducing me to compare myself to my peers.

Alternatively, I've being seeing many other creatives, writers and activists starting their own newsletters. This became even more noticeable in the last year, where many people have had legitimate safety concerns around the ties of social media platforms to a fascist administration bent on doubling down on surveillance. With that momentum I felt it was time to make the move myself.

Most people have chosen Substack as a platform. I think that for most people it's the best move, as it is very friction-less to get started which is a big win when wanting to move with scarce time in your hands. Digital migration is a lifelong process that we can take on little by little. I do want to call out some problems with Substack that led me to not pick it as my choice.

First of all is the pricing scheme. Substack takes a 10% cut from subscriptions plus credit card fees, which is really steep. If your newsletter ends up growing, the cost of being on Substack adds up versus paying an upfront membership with another platform. The site also hosts white supremacist newsletters and doesn't care to regulate hate speech, since they are profitable.

These are inevitable consequences of platform capitalism. Whenever we use a platform that is initially friction-less, we pay the price later in the form of it prioritizing profit over customers. The terms or political leanings of a platform might change at any moment, and we get no say in it.

Instead, it is worthwhile to look into other tools that give users more power, have higher ethical standards, and sustainable / profitable business models that will not end up becoming enshittified by venture capital growth. This is what led me to Ghost, the app this newsletter is hosted in.

I was first attracted to Ghost as a publishing platform because of other writers that used it, such as Paris Marx, YK Hong and 404 Media, who are all strong advocates for technological sovereignty and digital privacy and security. I also liked the user interface and found it much more enjoyable to navigate than Substack.

Ghost is an open source blogging platform and is also 100% funded by customer revenue, which means there are no private capital funds controlling the vision of the platform. This funding comes entirely from Ghost.org, which is their frictionless offering of the blogging tool. This means they take no fees from paid subscriptions, which is awesome.

I also recently discovered Buttondown through another newsletter, and it looks like a pretty neat option: lightweight, accessible, and 100% customer funded. Seems like a great option if you want something cheaper/easier than Ghost that isn't as flashy.

Setting up the newsletter

There are two primary ways to use Ghost. The first is to use Ghost.org. For the people interested in using this platform but without too much tech knowledge, this is the most convenient option. However, it's quite expensive if you're starting out as you need to pay a higher tier to get access to paid subscriptions. It's worthwhile for publications with a decent amount of existing subscribers.

The second option is self hosting Ghost yourself. This gives you the most control and ownership of the site, but it's quite an involved process to get going and maintain. This is why I was happy to find a middle ground option: Magic Pages. This is a service provided by one (!) person that hosts Ghost for you, allows you to use paid subscriptions for cheaper and gives some additional customization options. As a technical user, I found this to be the perfect middle ground.

Magic Pages is also hosted in German servers, which is much preferable to US based ones, which might be subject to surveillance and censorship in the near future. In the case that Magic Pages doesn't feel right anymore or the owner can no longer sustain it, it is always possible for me to migrate my newsletter by hosting Ghost myself or using another provider.

Coming Up

After installing and setting up this site, I also discovered that the experience of using Ghost is really nice, and making me reconnect with the fun of blogging. It also has given me a lot of control on the styling to make the site feel like home. And the post editor is very powerful and welcoming, which makes me want to write more.

For now, I am just including a single paid subscription tier that functions as a tip jar. This is for people that want to support my work and give me confidence and encouragement to keep developing this newsletter. In the future as I develop a sense of what people are interested in and what I can offer, I could provide certain paid tier content to help me sustain myself and this project.

I'm happy about getting started with this newsletter, as I've always liked long form writing, going more in depth and generating an archive that I hope people can access and find useful in posterity. Sometimes it feels like I am going back in time to simpler Internet days, and beyond any sappy nostalgia I think that this is a more sustainable and enjoyable way of communicating than the constant notification barrage of the modern tech landscape.