The pledge buttons were a glitch

I didn’t want them there, I swear!

No post for a year, and then twice in an afternoon? Yes, because I have to apologize for those infernal pledge your support buttons junking up the first one. I didn’t do that! Substack did that! And it was really gross, and I’m sorry.

I didn’t even know they were there

And when I found out, my head got … explosive. I’ve been seething for a couple hours now, trying to decide whether or not to explain/apologize.

I’ve got more than twenty years intensive experience with web publishing technology. Glitches happen, and mostly you just have to breathe and move on.

But this was just too gross. I feel like a cat with tape on its paw. It is killing me that I spammed you with “pledge your support” buttons!

And poorly formatted, no less! 😱 My inner typographer hasn’t been this upset since James Cameron used Papyrus for “Avatar.”

What happened? Substack effed up

The post was pristine when I published, I swear. But I do know how it happened. Substack interrupted to suggest putting “subscribe” buttons in the post, and gave me the option to add them. Here’s what that looks like:

Not “Add pledge buttons,” mind you. So why not? If you agree, Subtack gives you some tools for adding subscribe buttons, with or without captions. I’ll put one here at the end, *click* … but nothing happened.

The “add button” button no worky.

I tried two more times, and then a final time in another spot. Still nothing. Huh. Weird.

But it was “working.” I was adding completely invisible “Pledge your support” buttons, making a little tower of asking-for-money buttons, jebus!

Screw it, I thought. I’ve fussed over this thing long enough. Time to send it.

And then the invisible begging-buttons manifested when it was published.

🤯

I’m trapped in a glass cage of emotion

I decide to post again about this because those damned buttons are a 1000 × worse than typo.

I’m a shy writer. I don’t particularly like putting myself out there (it’s more like a compulsion), and one of my coping mechanisms is to keep it classy.

Multiple poorly aligned “Pledge Your Support” buttons is about as far from classy as I can imagine.

And I was unusually self-conscious about reviving this newsletter. I had “stage fright.” I sweated that draft more than I should have. I felt weird reaching out to a substantial audience, many of whom literally don’t even remember what this is about — and without even really anything substantive to say other than I’m baaaaack.

It’s an abomination to me that the post was sabotaged by tasteless Substack glitch at the last second, completely misrepresenting my character and intention. Just awful. One of the worst publishing glitches I’ve ever experienced.

UPDATE: Turns out the pledge buttons are a “feature,” not a bug

So … Substack deliberately converts “Subscribe” buttons to “Pledge Your Support” buttons for existing subscribers. It’s remains a subscribe button for non-subscribers visiting the web version.

This conversion occurs silently. You can see it in the previews just fine, if you go looking there. But it’s easily missed! Publishers are not warned in any way when they insert a “Subscribe” button that it will be turned into an obnoxious begging button for their subscribers.

And I am definitely not the only Substack publisher who has been pissed off to discover that they were accidentally asking their subscribers for pledges. It’s especially enfuriating when there was an earlier promise not to monetize the newsletter!

This terrible design also effectively cripples the subscribe button for my use case. I would love to include a subscribe button in the web version … but I cannot do it it’s going to be converted to a pledge button for subscribers! And the only way to stop that conversion is to disable the pledge option entirely in the account settings.

Obviously the right thing to do is to have a subscribe button that simply disappears for subscribers. There could then be a separate option to explicitly add pledge buttons. And/or the Substack UI needs to make it much clearer how to audit how the post will be rendered for different audiences.