>But from the standpoint of an independent news organization, they suck.

Well, they're not an independent news organization. It was supposed to be a newsletter service, whatever the pivots.

But in any case, even if they don't have the "news", the breadth and quality of commentary there, one never sees in establisment media. And the option to cut down the shit is trivially easy: just read your subscribed newsletters (in your inbox preferably) and skip any other feed Substack has.

Yeah as a reader and occasional commenter I find Substack to be a great source for interesting and informative writing on a number of topics. I spend a decent chunk of my internet reading time on there and hope the platform thrives.

> If you as an independent commentator are tied to a centralized platform, you are a feature to be sold, and will be muzzled or deprecated if needed.

Wasn't one selling point of Substack that you could easily leave with your subscribers, so substack writers aren't really for sale and can't be muzzled/deprecated? Or did it change since Substack was launed?

Also are you thinking about specific writer(s)/events when you wrote 'muzzled or deprecated if needed.'?

That's still the case. I've seen a few newsletters I follow move off the platform, one of them just a couple weeks ago. I don't like to see them go though because I think Substack is great overall, much better than competing services.

When a newsletter moves off Substack, can they take their incoming links and SEO mojo with them? If so, how does that work?

They seem to be getting muzzled less than they did on the legacy media platforms that they left to go to substack.