Twitter/FB/etc make commenting painless because everyone has an account and is already logged in. This at least has the potential to get to that position. DIY doesn't.
HN or Reddit can be my comment site, if anyone actually read my blog :P Or people can write their own blog post in response and host it on their site.
This could be a bug, not a feature if you look at it from indie-bloggers' perspective. The DIY types are not target audience for the solution you're proposing.
There is a space for both 1) Substack-like platforms 2) DIY indie blogs.
Some cool things about DIY blogs:
- Email them! You can make friends by just emailing people. Private conversations.
- No censorship, this is a complex topic but DIY'ers probably consider censorship a bug than a feature.
- Custom design and personality
- Self-hosting pride
Well said. The outcome doesn't need to be that one dies and the other survives. So much falls into the "there is one ideal way to do this" trap.
You can embed services such as discourse, and in this case (Nicheless) it appears responses are private anyway.