I am Ghosting My Newsletter: Why I’m Moving My Notes Off Substack

This will be my last Substack article.

There’s a reason many of us turned to Substack in the first place. It promised simplicity. Distribution. A direct line to your audience. For a while, that was enough. But for those of us using writing to build something deeper, an identity, a business, a point of view that lives beyond a single newsletter, the cracks in Substack’s foundation are hard to ignore. And so are the way too many "Hack your way to Substack Fame" articles.

So I’m moving my Field Notes, essays, and articles off Substack and onto Ghost, a platform that’s more aligned with how I want to think, work, and grow.

This isn’t just a technical migration. It’s a strategic reset. Here’s why:

1. Substack is Not Neutral
Despite its best branding efforts, Substack is not just a “platform for writers.” It’s a media company with opinions about what should and shouldn’t be published, and its business model incentivizes polarizing voices and controversial growth hacks. That’s fine, if you’re building the Substack brand. But I’m building my brand, not theirs. And I am so tired of wading through all the growth hack articles just to find those pearls in the shit.

I don’t want to share a hallway with pundits I’d never invite into a boardroom.

2. Their Audience is Not My Audience
Substack wants discovery to happen inside Substack. But unless you’re part of a handful of algorithmically boosted darlings, your growth is capped. Worse, my most loyal readers aren’t my readers, they’re Substack’s. I don’t control the recommendation engine, and I certainly don’t control the context in which my work is discovered (if at all.)

3. Product Focus is Fuzzy
Substack keeps bolting on features—chat, podcasting, “Notes,” video, recommendations. None of it feels coherent. It’s trying to be a media company, a social network, and a creator tool all at once.

Ghost, by contrast, knows what it is: a publishing platform. And that clarity is reflected in the product. Clean. Fast. Purpose-built for writers who want a newsletter.

4. It’s Time to Consolidate
I have been running a Substack and a Ghost account for a while now. Twice the work, half the impact. I don’t need another platform I have to work around. I need one I can build from, and one that does what I need it to do. Send you an email when I write a new article.

Ghost is where I’ll be writing, sharing, and shaping what comes next, and I do hope you will subscribe. Or resubscribe if you already did on Substack.

What This Means for You
If you’ve been reading my Notes on Substack, thank you. You’re why I write. But from now on, everything new will live here.

This isn’t a dramatic goodbye. It’s a deliberate upgrade.
Because good ideas deserve better infrastructure.

And less fucking noise.