Over the last couple months, I have been exploring options that would allow me to finally get my butt off Substack. I attempted to do that with Ghost, but I found the monthly subscription to be prohibitively expensive when my list of paid subscribers numbered only about a dozen folks. After much consternation, I decided to buy my own domain and host it here on WordPress.
I'm not a tech savvy type of human, and the older I get, the harder it becomes to really understand what works and what doesn't work in the tech world--but it seems that hosting it here works just fine, and it allows me the chance to really build something meaningful without giving money to the platform-that-likes-to-host-fascist-talking-heads.
In migrating things over, I also found that attempting to migrate paid subscriptions between services was an absolute nightmare, and it became too much of an anxiety-driven freakshow that I've made the decision to refund paid subscriptions made through Substack, and keep them off on this platform. There's a donate button if you'd like to financially support my work, but I'm going back to my old rule--this information that I share, via Labor Digests, posts about my life and the reading I'm doing, and anything else I find to be important, should be free to consume by my readers. It's good shit, frankly. I want you to read it. So, it won't be paywalled.
It is my sincere hope that this is the last time I need to migrate posts and subscribers and all the rest to a new platform. I want to give my readers consistency, and I know that this sort of platform-hopping just throws a wrench in the works. If you subscribed for free over on Substack, you should receive emails automatically. If you're just joining over here, I hope you stick around, add your email to the list, and enjoy the work.
Thanks for your patience, and your support.
With love and solidarity,
Mel
