A New Home for The Catch

At the end of 2023, I announced that The Catch would migrate away from Substack, since they approved of Nazis being on their site. I announced I would explore options to move the newsletter.

The selections were plentiful. Between old, tried and true services, like Patreon, and services that gained prominence in the wake of Substack's Nazi approval, like Buttondown and Hiiv, anyone looking to migrate their newsletter has plenty of options.

Buttondown, possibly the biggest benefactor from Substack shooting itself in the foot, looked like the easiest option. On Bluesky, they boasted that "Nazi content is not allowed on Buttondown." There have also been multiple accounts reposted by them saying the transition between the two was simple and easy.

No hate towards Buttondown. It looks like it's run by one dude, and the service looks pretty good and simple for what its meant to do. But to be fair, "Nazis are not allowed" is not a selling point. It should be the bare minimum. Additionally, as an independent journalist, expansion and customization of my newsletter needs to be considered. There's no plans at this point to expand past the regular analysis and round-up posts, but it's better to move to a service that allows for that in the future, rather than migrating again. So if you run a simple newsletter, Buttondown may be what you're looking for.

That means the service you're seeing this on, and the service that's the new home for The Catch for the indefinite future, is Ghost.

I'll be completely honest with you, it was a bit of a headache. Domain hosting, coding, tech things in general are not my strong suit. I was very confused the whole time. I will likely be confused in the future when I look to further customize the theme of The Catch. Thankfully, one of the reasons that I chose Ghost was a combination of the features, customization and tech support. The Ghost support team was incredibly helpful not only with my issues navigating their platform, but with my issues rerouting the domain to their service on the platforms where I bought and managed it. I also employed help from two of my friends with tech questions and evaluating Ghost as a service. So if you're reading this, you know who you are. Thanks.

That being said, Ghost also has issues. I was disappointed when I saw that Quillette is hosted using Ghost (for those who don't know, Quillette regularly publishes authors that support eugenics and other unsavoury views). But as a service that is open-source, I feel there's less culpability than directly hosting and profiting off of the spread of Nazi propaganda (not none). But on the other hand, they also host great news sites like The Maple and 404 Media. Since Ghost isn't as centrally controlled as Substack, this felt as though it was a more fair trade-off.

In addition, the payment structure for Ghost is vastly different than Substack. As they note on their comparison page, they charge a flat fee depending on the amount of subscribers you have, compared to Substack charging 10 per cent of revenue. This means that Ghost is not directly profiting from the amount of people subscribed and reading these pieces, outside of the flat fee people pay to use the service.

Of course, this also means that I am now investing in The Catch financially. After beginning with a free trial to explore options for migration and customization, I'll be paying the package that hosts up to 500 subscribers to host The Catch, in addition to domain hosting. This means paid options will be coming soon. There are a couple people who pledged amounts on Substack, but I didn't turn on the payment options there, so they shouldn't be charged immediately when I choose to turn it on. If you're one of these people, feel free to reach out with any questions you may have.

Even when paid options come, the round-ups and weekly analysis will remain free to access for everyone.

While I still hope my colleagues and contemporaries move away from Substack, I don't hold it personally against any of those who don't. The unfortunate truth is that Substack has the biggest stranglehold on the newsletter and independent journalist market. It's free, easy to start, and once you're locked into a payment situation, it's difficult to leave. This is most likely by design, considering the complicated process it took me to leave, but if that's the case, I still encourage them to explore other options. A flat fee for a year, rather than a 10 per cent cut of revenue in perpetuity, leaves a much better option for expansion.

The Catch will return with its regular analysis next week, followed by the round-up (with a cool new graphic!). Until then, all of my former Substack posts are available on this website. The Substack for The Catch will remain up for a few months, until such time as it has little to no traffic, then I plan to delete it.

Until then, you can check out readthecatch.ca for all your Canadian news analysis needs.