I hate substack. I'll hold my nose and click a substack link if I expect it to be especially informative, but I mostly pass them over.
Added: it's not really the distasteful stuff that substack users sometimes publish on the platform (I'm not big on guilt by association in that regard). I hate the substack software and the expectation that anything on their domain will be somebody's brain fart behind a paywall.
I have some personal static web pages, no blog per se, but some bloggers use Lemmy to federate comments. That seems like a reasonable approach for static blogs if the content isn't too edgy. If you're worried about long term archiving of the comments, you can always archive them yourself with an automated client behind the scenes.
namecrane.com is a good host for shared web hosting if you don't want to use a VPS and run a HTTPD yourself. It starts at $8 per year (bring your own domain). They support tons of existing blogging engines among other things. It's a spin-off from buyvm.net which some of you might be familiar with.
Blog from your own domain and you can establish your own personal aesthetic. Blog at Substack and some people will inevitably associate you, accurately or not, with the site's established culture. Substack is notorious for its hustlers and grifters.
Substack is trying to become a new social media platform in the style of Twitter with its Notes feature, and with a mobile app with an awful feed (it's the only way to Pangram-check posts, which is unfortunately often needed). I'm using it now for my writing, reluctantly, because there are some interesting people there and it's possible to leave (it is still an email newsletter tool at heart and you have the addresses). But there's also a lot of verbose nonsense, echo chambers, and outright automated grift out there.
The paid side of it is just in poor taste. Almost inevitably, it leads you down the path to "read the bombshell beyond the paywall, now just $49.99 a year!" sensationalism.
P.S. The feed is awful in the sense of awfully effective at attention-grabbing. I managed to never install any of the standard infinite-scroll feeds (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc.), but Substack sneaked up on me and man, this stuff is not good for your psyche!
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