6 reasons to ditch Facebook for Substack
and none of them related to politics
I smiled when I saw last week’s Zuckenberg’s announcements. Facebook’s CEO just killed their fact-checking program (which had never worked properly), moved offices to Texas, nominated political figures as directors, and donated funds to politicians.
Maybe this will spark a wave of political exodus from Facebook (similar to “Xodus” from Twitter/X two months ago) but…. is there anyone still left there? Sadly yes, and growing: Facebook grows at the annual rate of 5%.
As travel and life philosophy writer, I quit Facebook a while ago, and moved to Substack. To help my friends whom I left behind, I compiled this list of reasons to also quit. None of them related to politics.
I am far from religious about Substack. I am pragmatic.
1. Control of What I See
Below: to the left is my Substack feed, to the right is my Facebook feed. On Substack, I am in full control of what I read and see. In Facebook, however, the algorithm decides for me. As a result, my feed is filled with nonsense: clickbait, paid content, and suggested posts. It steals my attention, energy and time.
2. Anti-social financial model
Facebook connects friends. That’s a great idea. But this idea is not compatible with Facebook’s financial model: pay-per-view from advertisers. As soon as you befriend people, Facebook’s algorithm analyzes the shape of your network and decides to push certain content your way. You cannot escape seing things you don’t want to see, because this is how the platform makes a living.
Substack, on the other hand, connects authors and readers. This powerful concept leads to ‘the brotherhood of soulmates’: people subscribe to you for your ideas and core values, even if they do not know you personally. Substack’s financial model is based on your voluntary contribution to paid publications - so there is no paid content. This is why in Substack you fully control your feed. The platform does not push unwanted things to you, because their revenue comes from elsewhere.
3. Control of delivery, censorship and shadow-banning
My Substack subscribers always receive my content. If I write well, my audience grows over time and each publication becomes visible to more people. In Facebook, however, my followers do not always see my content, because the algorithm bombards them with irrelevant posts. I may grow my audience by befriending more people, but it doesn’t matter - my publications are systematically outshined by clickbait.
In the past, if I liked a Substack article, I reposted it on Facebook so others could benefit. Over time, I observed that my content became less and less visible. A friend explained to me that my account has been shadow-banned. This is invisible censorship that Facebook uses to punish people who post content from other platforms.
Allowing private company to manage censorship must always end bad. That’s why I never believed in Facebook’s, now defunct, fact-checking.
Substack (to my knowledge) does not use shadow-banning.
4. Quality and joy of reading
Substack forces me to constantly focus on quality of my writing, because that’s why people subscribed to me. They have full control over the content and can unsubscribe with a single click! So, I have to write well, think twice before publishing, and respect their time and attention. Some articles cost me even weeks of work, like Worlds We Don’t See. On Facebook and Linkedin, however, people follow each other to expand their social networks. There is no strong incentive for quality content, because what matters is who you connect to, rather than what they publish.
In my recent experience, time spent on Facebook often leads to frustration. The content I am forced to see is disturbing, designed as clickbait or made to go viral. I frequently miss posts of friends, because their content loses the algorithmic battle to aggressive or paid publishers.
On Substack, however, I chose material that is informative, intellectually stimulating or aligns with values I want to support. I also enjoy exploring and testing new publications. But if, over time, an author no longer meets my needs, I simply unsubscribe - and no longer see their content again. It’s that simple.
5. Ownership of audience
This reason is so fundamental that I will commit a separate article to it. In short, Facebook owns your audience (because users are identified by identifiers, which cannot be used outside Facebook). In Substack, you own your audience. Users are identified by email addresses, which you can download and move them to another newsletter platform: Medium, Mailchimp or Beehiv. This reason alone is enough to not invest in Facebook.
Professional content creators should also prefer to work with emails. Emails can be integrated with automation tools, such as Make, Kit or Zapier. Integrating such tools with Meta/Facebook/Insta is more difficult.
6. Subscription deluge
A generic problem with social media (not just Facebook) is the practical impossibility of keeping up with everyone’s updates. Many of my 800 Facebook friends post several times per day. Consuming such amount of information is practically impossible - and also not needed.
Before Internet, I used to send and receive many letters from friends around the world. A letter sent in Winter, would receive an answer in Spring. I find it quite a natural cycle.
On Substack, I run two newsletters. NomadicMind is for those who want to read me often. But I also run quarterly newsletter 42, for friends who just want to stay in touch. 42 is like good, old, paper letter.
Summary
Substack allows me to read what I want, publish what I want, and have control over my audience.
Facebook instead, over the years degenerated to antisocial, depressive, pathetic sink of information of little value and little control.
At the beginning, I said I was not religious about Substack: a private company can change its course. But if things go bad here, I can always download my contact list and migrate to another newsletter platform. This is why I am not worried to recommend Substack app to friends.
Post Scriptum
If you liked it, maybe time to discover NomadicMind? I write on making sense of life (30%) and travel (70%). Is this the right mix?
Gambia, Cao Verde, Senegal - check my African series
Europe - people, music, nature, vanlife. Italy, France, and more
History, thoughts on Jews and Poles: Poland vs Netanyahu
my most popular article so far: Worlds We Don’t See
Absolutely spot on about Facebook. I recently reactivated my account after a decade just out of curiosity. Most of my friends seem to have left in the meantime but of the ones who remained, it was impossible to see any of their updates amongst the low effort rubbish being pushed by the algorithm. Newsletters and email are a nod to the past, a simpler time during the early internet.