Substack finally yielded to the censors. I’m disappointed but not surprised. It’s just a permanent fact of business. If you want big money and big distribution, especially in the tech world, you need big loans and big VC capital and big lawyers. All of those resources are rigidly locked into the worst of Deepstate.
If you have a private benefactor you can escape the VC side of this trap, which is the harshest taskmaster. Apparently Substack doesn’t have Fuck You Money, so it must meekly obey Deepstate’s dictates.
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Later after thinking about material harm in the above item about plagiarism… I’m materially disappointed by Substack’s submission. When I pay for a subscription to a writer, I’m not only supporting the writer’s work; I’m consciously trying to keep the SUBSCRIPTION MODEL prosperous so Substack will NOT submit. Now that they’ve submitted anyway, they’ve punched their anti-censor helpers in the face.
What were we paying for? The VCs pay for submission and get submission. The customers pay for courage and get the opposite.
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Later and better thought: It’s not just the VCs. From the start, the vast majority of writers and readers on Substack have been standard D. The most popular writers (like Bari Weiss and Heather Richardson) are ex-MSNBC and ex-NYTimes journalists who got out of the dying mainstream and started making money in the growing subscription market. They are still saying the same things they said at NYTimes or MSNBC.
Dillinger’s rule. The bank is where the money is. Right now all the rich people are Democrats, so serving D tastes is the bank. The small number of non-D writers are Negative Externalities. Losing their customers is a net positive, since the moneymakers have stated openly that they want the Negative Externalities to go away.
It’s probably time to move my money out of the bank. Greenwald switched his writing from Substack to Locals a while ago. Locals seems to be gathering a few other serious independents, but not much population yet.
Polistra's Mill 