Member-only story
RUDE ASSUMPTIONS
I Do Not Want Your Substack
Your invasion of my inbox is unwelcome
Recently I have received several emails that started off something like this:
Hello! You are receiving this because you signed up to receive emails from me on Medium. I export that list to Substack, which is where I also write. Hopefully you consider this a pleasant surprise, and not spam. Thanks for being a reader!
Surprise, surprise, I do consider it spam and the first thing I will do is hit the Unsubscribe button to stop further spamming.
The second thing I do is find the author on Medium, unfollow them, and remove myself from their email list. I don’t like rude people. I may enjoy reading them on Medium, but they have violated my trust by reusing my email address at another site — and who knows where else?
Medium’s rules unfortunately do not address this. I wish they did.
The proper way to do this would be to ask permission. A person starting a Substack might write an article here and request an email response giving permission to use our addresses. I would ignore it because I do not like Substack, but I would not be angry. I would not unfollow or unsubscribe here at Medium.
