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Medium v. Substack — why do I publish my newsletter on Substack?
How it all began
I have been running blogs and writing blog posts before blogs were even a thing. I put together my first blog back in 1994. At the time, I was working for a very forward-thinking university that offered staff free web space. I took my free space and started posting random pages about walks, places I had visited, and lists of useful scientific websites. I even ran a pub review site on the server, probably against University rules.
Over the years, I have run countless blogs on a wide range of subjects, using a wide range of different platforms. I have run blogs on everything from science to teaching, travel and photography. But nothing has ever stuck. I never developed a pattern of regular blogging.
The closest I came to regular blogging was with a couple of photography projects where I posted a photo every day. One project lasted from December 2013 to May 2015 and the second from February 2017 to June 2018. In both cases, the exercise was only supposed to last a year but ended up lasting longer. The photo blogs now contain some 1013 posts. These blogs worked for me and lasted as long as they did because I had set the rule that I had to post every day.
