Call it recency bias …
Or maybe call it an inability to decide.
Warning: Do not buy the generic brand!
It also explains why I eat Cheerios. The reason? First, there are too many choices out there. And second, Cheerios are just really good. They are tasty with or without milk, and solo or mixed in with almond butter, blackstrap molasses and flax. The other day I was disappointed to discover that Publix was out of Cheerios. (Catastrophe!) Thinking that a cheerio is a cheerio, I bought the generic brand. Boy was I wrong. It looked identical but tasted plain, or flat – like a soda without its fizz. I finished the box but it was painful, or just plain.
Of course this post has nothing to do with Cheerios and everything to do with having too many choices to try to choose from. That’s why I go with Cheerios first and foremost, but it turns out they are really the best. Now, if I could just find the same with a “newsletter solution” for my Nature Folk ecosystem of websites (including Go Hydrology, Campfire Park and Bobby Angel to name the top three).
About a year ago, maybe two, I discovered Substack and created the Nature Folk Flyer — almost on a lark after reading an article in the Wall Street Journal (or was it the New York Times) about how the platform was booming. Curious, I gave it a go and was overwhelmed, i.e. just thrilled, with (1) its ease of use and (2) its seamless newsletter solution, and (3) that it offered a paid plan. And so I was off to the races.
As much as I loved it, I also saw its limitations. Unlike my other flagship sites, the templates and formatting are pretty simplistic. And in terms of branding, you can’t create a store, or really organize your site. And so I got off the Substack racetrack and doubled down on refining my other websites, which I do not regret, and couldn’t be more happy with the result. But here I am a year later still not convinced on my newsletter solution for any of my websites, let alone one that unifies them all. At times I wish I had more technical support, or better advice, or a clear vision for seeing the path ahead.
In any event, I think you see my point: Here I am back blogging on Substack even after a day before I posted a link on my new Patreon Account. The more I dug into Patreon, the more I saw that it was not all that different than Substack, with Substack probably being a better solution for the user (you) in terms of the reading interface.
And thus I go back to the Cheerios. Choices are good, but sometimes there are too many. And that’s where I find myself now with trying to figure out a “newsletter solution” that creates a community, encourages paid subscribers and also integrates all my web platforms.
Maybe I outgrow Cheerios yet, but for now I’m not sure that Substack and the Nature Folk Flyer isn’t my best bet.
What do you think?
Signed, and confused as ever …