I'm increasingly interested/frustrated/appalled by the "skimming" aspect of all these things. That $7 subscription doesn't mean I'm putting $7 in your pocket. I'm putting...15% or more in *Substack's* pocket. Same with credit card fees and so on. The meme that points out that $100 cash generates hundreds or thousands of dollars of value by being spent and re-spent in its community while $100 passed around through electronic systems is entirely gone up to the top of the billionaire ladder (unless you are very lucky and careful about which systems you use; Zelle doesn't charge me for transactions) in the same number of transactions is right. That money stops being available for my community because those companies are not paying their people enough to keep up with the cost of living which means they are hoarding it. I don't begrudge money being passed around because it allows us to express our own sense of value and in some ways our own values, the philosophical kind. But I do, I find resent it being siphoned off and cloistered away. (I recognize that cloister is a weird metaphor and yet not but I'm trying not to overthink it because this is a comment on the internet).
I value your thinking and ideas but the real value to me is feeling less alone--to hear someone else say stuff a lot like what I think with similar values and experiences and some research to back it up. I have wonderful community but very few of my people are thinking deeply about this stuff and I get the sweet but frustrating smile and nod more often than is good for my psyche. I think of you as a colleague, albeit one at some respectful parasocial remove. I would not presume to think I actually know you unless I did. But I would gratefully read and listen to your work like two colleagues in any field might, to deepen and challenge and enrich my thinking, and to let me know that I'm not alone.
More not overthinking comments on the internet, please! I really appreciate how you articulate the value you receive from the newsletter, Leela. That means a lot to me.
And I totally agree about the "skimming" piece. I'm always hesitant to criticize paying for useful tools (for instance, people trying to avoid Stripe or PayPal fees). However, when I'm assessed a fee, I expect that to go to a service (broadly defined) that I couldn't easily replicate on my own. Where services like Ghost and Buttondown have Substack beat is that it's a monthly fee rather than a transaction fee. My hope was/is that Substack provides something that makes up for the difference in terms of recommendations and discovery. But I'm not sure the math maths on that!
I'm still here because of the community and discovery pieces--honestly I'm hoping against hope that it somehow resists the enshittification cycle although I'm not . expecting. it will. I just...I want you to get my money, not MasterCard and visa, and while I want substack to make sustainable money (and I really like that it means you can grow your audience here at no risk to you the creator, it's very accessible) I want to know that those funds come back down and out, that they're paying people well and planning to continue to serve the communities they built. I also like to pay for software I use but there's an invisible line where I get resentful, when it feels like they are mostly using the creators as ad hoc employees or stones from which to squeeze blood. Adobe fees have crossed that line. So far I'm not mad at Substack, but I am wary. (And I .am. mad at Stripe.)
So clear and appreciated. As I long now as an Elder to disseminate affordably to (aka scale and serve) those who need and can benefit from my wisdom the most, I am struck by how unappealing and unsustainable my online business options truly are.
Thank you for sharing the "why". It helps me to not judge myself as "old-school" or persnickity, or to believe that overused assumption that I'm in "resistance <gak>".
I just don't see any of the options running on the basis of extraction and exploitation of both sides of a monetary exchange as acceptable. Back to the drawing board without a second guess as to why, thanks to you.
For me, I both value your analyzing and thinking out loud in writing and I want to help pay for your career to keep doing so, because it will get me where I'm going and many, many of us will benefit and show the way we can all thrive without unsustainable growth and consumption. And so it will be.
Thank you, Aine. I agree that there are a lot of bad options out there. But I do think there are ways to ethically and generatively do business, even if they're not perfect. It's that question of whether what one wants to offer makes sense as a product (or service) or whether it requires an altogether different approach.
I'm increasingly interested/frustrated/appalled by the "skimming" aspect of all these things. That $7 subscription doesn't mean I'm putting $7 in your pocket. I'm putting...15% or more in *Substack's* pocket. Same with credit card fees and so on. The meme that points out that $100 cash generates hundreds or thousands of dollars of value by being spent and re-spent in its community while $100 passed around through electronic systems is entirely gone up to the top of the billionaire ladder (unless you are very lucky and careful about which systems you use; Zelle doesn't charge me for transactions) in the same number of transactions is right. That money stops being available for my community because those companies are not paying their people enough to keep up with the cost of living which means they are hoarding it. I don't begrudge money being passed around because it allows us to express our own sense of value and in some ways our own values, the philosophical kind. But I do, I find resent it being siphoned off and cloistered away. (I recognize that cloister is a weird metaphor and yet not but I'm trying not to overthink it because this is a comment on the internet).
I value your thinking and ideas but the real value to me is feeling less alone--to hear someone else say stuff a lot like what I think with similar values and experiences and some research to back it up. I have wonderful community but very few of my people are thinking deeply about this stuff and I get the sweet but frustrating smile and nod more often than is good for my psyche. I think of you as a colleague, albeit one at some respectful parasocial remove. I would not presume to think I actually know you unless I did. But I would gratefully read and listen to your work like two colleagues in any field might, to deepen and challenge and enrich my thinking, and to let me know that I'm not alone.
More not overthinking comments on the internet, please! I really appreciate how you articulate the value you receive from the newsletter, Leela. That means a lot to me.
And I totally agree about the "skimming" piece. I'm always hesitant to criticize paying for useful tools (for instance, people trying to avoid Stripe or PayPal fees). However, when I'm assessed a fee, I expect that to go to a service (broadly defined) that I couldn't easily replicate on my own. Where services like Ghost and Buttondown have Substack beat is that it's a monthly fee rather than a transaction fee. My hope was/is that Substack provides something that makes up for the difference in terms of recommendations and discovery. But I'm not sure the math maths on that!
I'm still here because of the community and discovery pieces--honestly I'm hoping against hope that it somehow resists the enshittification cycle although I'm not . expecting. it will. I just...I want you to get my money, not MasterCard and visa, and while I want substack to make sustainable money (and I really like that it means you can grow your audience here at no risk to you the creator, it's very accessible) I want to know that those funds come back down and out, that they're paying people well and planning to continue to serve the communities they built. I also like to pay for software I use but there's an invisible line where I get resentful, when it feels like they are mostly using the creators as ad hoc employees or stones from which to squeeze blood. Adobe fees have crossed that line. So far I'm not mad at Substack, but I am wary. (And I .am. mad at Stripe.)
So clear and appreciated. As I long now as an Elder to disseminate affordably to (aka scale and serve) those who need and can benefit from my wisdom the most, I am struck by how unappealing and unsustainable my online business options truly are.
Thank you for sharing the "why". It helps me to not judge myself as "old-school" or persnickity, or to believe that overused assumption that I'm in "resistance <gak>".
I just don't see any of the options running on the basis of extraction and exploitation of both sides of a monetary exchange as acceptable. Back to the drawing board without a second guess as to why, thanks to you.
For me, I both value your analyzing and thinking out loud in writing and I want to help pay for your career to keep doing so, because it will get me where I'm going and many, many of us will benefit and show the way we can all thrive without unsustainable growth and consumption. And so it will be.
Thank you, Aine. I agree that there are a lot of bad options out there. But I do think there are ways to ethically and generatively do business, even if they're not perfect. It's that question of whether what one wants to offer makes sense as a product (or service) or whether it requires an altogether different approach.