Yeah, so 18% of the stuff is shipped by someone else. IDK if you want to call that “a lot”, but I definitely wouldn’t call it “very few.” Anyway glad we got to the answer, however to characterize it.

You are saying “the bad is a necessary evil to protect free speech,” and not at all addressing the fact that the “bad” doesn’t appear to exist on modern Substack. If you have seen it, where have you seen it?

I literally linked an example.

Okay, so you’re in favor of removing any content which is dishonest and anti-gay from Substack. Fair enough, I get it.

I actually do agree with Substack’s original moderation stance, precisely for reasons of free speech. We can talk about that if you want, although it’s a more complex conversation and we probably won’t come to agree on it.

I had a feeling, and maybe this reply isn’t outright confirmation, but it’s enough. I think you tunnel visioned so hard on defending poor Substack and free speech that you’re not even properly reading what you’re replying to. You’re going up and down this thread, finger on the trigger, and the moment you see the word Nazi you just fire.

You’re right, we probably wouldn’t agree, and if my read on you is any good, I’d rather not waste time on that conversion.

Sounds good. What do you think should be done about Substack’s hosting of anti-gay content? Do you think it should impact me posting Tim Snyder articles from Substack? Do you think it’s accurate to summarize it as “Nazi” content?

A lot of us know by now that Substack has a Nazi problem.

It is moral and correct to censor Nazis.

Nazis love that argument, and they’re a threat to much more than just free speech. They shouldn’t get to block attempts at censoring them, and they specially shouldn’t get support to do so, because they’re one of the reasons it’s necessary in the first place.

Got it.

If you think my problem with Substack is “Nazis are there right now,” then you didn’t get it.

At no point do I claim there are Nazis there. To reiterate: bad is not specifically and exclusively Nazis.

Got it.

Anyway, the core of my point is that anyone who’s talking about this type of free speech argument on Substack, particular if it’s specifically applied in the context of Nazis, is largely living in a fantasy-land.

You are commenting under an article that says “A lot of us know by now that Substack has a Nazi problem,” and then saying that you’re not talking about Nazis.

You are saying “the bad is a necessary evil to protect free speech,” and not at all addressing the fact that the “bad” doesn’t appear to exist on modern Substack. If you have seen it, where have you seen it?

Substack may not be Nazi-central, but it’s surely a product of broligarchy.

There’s a lot of this type of innuendo in the OP article and in your response. I’m dealing only with your factual arguments, sort of leaving aside things like this “many innocent ideas turn out to be dog-whistles” “it’s always the same shit” and things. If you want me to try to mount some kind of counterargument for the broligarchy claim, I can I guess. How would you define the broligarchy?

If you’re upset that I am mischaracterizing your argument as being about Nazis (because in some crazy fashion I got that idea), tell me what ideas you are in favor of removing from Substack. Where are they on Substack, right now?

I actually do agree with Substack’s original moderation stance, precisely for reasons of free speech. We can talk about that if you want, although it’s a more complex conversation and we probably won’t come to agree on it. But that whole side of things is completely moot at this point, because they caved to the pressure and removed all the Nazis, quite a while ago.

So why are you still upset at them? Wasn’t that the goal, to mount public pressure, and deplatform the Nazis?

Edit:

At no point do I say people shouldn’t listen to good journalists because of their platform of choice.

I should answer this, also. What are you saying the solution should be, if not to avoid Substack?

I don’t agree with your characterization of the “problem” with Substack, in terms of there being Nazi-adjacent content they are not moderating. But if there does turn out to be that content, what should you and I be doing about it?

I’ve seen people defend Substack saying it’s not so bad

Surely “there are not actually any Nazis on Substack” is a fair counterargument to “Substack has a Nazi problem and no one should listen to all of these good journalists who are on it now that even the tiny minority of Nazis have been ejected” is different from “not so bad.”

, or the bad is a necessary evil to protect free speech.

Surely “there are excellent journalists saying excellent things on Substack, and no Nazis” is different from “necessary evil to protect free speech.”

You’re living in opposite world, man.

Do you have numbers for this? I tried to find some, and couldn’t.

So like I said, the whole thing is pointless, because Substack changed their minds and kicked out the Nazis about a year ago. Anyone who is attacking them for being a Nazi platform is looking for an excuse, because it isn’t true anymore.

That’s the point, right? Give public pressure to platforms so they will deplatform the Nazis? What sense does it make to fail to notice when they do, and pretend that are still hosting Nazis, and talk incessantly about it when some important non-Nazi is just trying to pursue the critically endangered act of journalism on this platform which has no Nazis?

Why would you do that?

Yeah, Ghost is great. I’m not trying to say any bad thing about it. I think they’re slightly different: Substack went to bat in a big way to foster a community where real journalists could do their journalism there, and get paid for it, and to a large extent it worked. That’s why there are so many high-profile lefties writing there. Ghost is trying to set up a FOSS-style platform that anyone can use. Ghost has monetization too, but they didn’t prime the pump with it nearly as much as Substack did.

They’re both great. I think it’s pretty likely that anyone who’s screaming about Nazis on Substack is just looking for reasons to scream, and the Nazis have very little to do with it except as an excuse.

Hm, maybe I heard someone who was just confident with their presentation, and I thought it was science. Clearly there are some counterexamples out there.

Yeah, but why were they all taking turns?

What the fuck were they saying?

Why don’t they do it when people are around?

Cats do this, too. Late at night, a buddy of mine happened on a bunch of cats sitting in a circle, taking turns meowing at each other. He froze and watched it for a little while, and after a few meows, they all whipped around to look at him when they became aware of him, and then they all scattered in all directions.

What were they up to? Why did a human nearby scare them and make them stop and run?

Edit: Yes, I know adult cats don’t meow at each other, only at humans. I’m just reporting what was told to me.

absolutely not involved in any right wing conspiracy.

How do you know that? Do you know them personally, or audited them or something?

I don’t know that they are, and looking over their resume it does seem unlikely. But, also, I would have said that same thing looking at Taibbi’s or Greenwald’s resume in 2017. I just know that in this story, they are presenting things in this absolutely wildly inaccurate fashion that would be right at home in a right-wing conspiracy. Certainly, working at The Intercept for a long time isn’t some kind of bulwark against being infected with right-wing-propaganda-ism, with Greenwald himself as one absolutely interesting counterexample clearly on offer.

Lmao

Happy to help

Yeah, they have a paid+hosted option, or you can use the FOSS stuff it is based on and go it on your own. It’s a pretty good system I think.

Then they are being silly.

I actually don’t think that would be an issue in practice, given how alarmingly eager Fediverse instance operators are to get in bed with Cloudflare and AWS. But, if you are accepting payments, you are for the forseeable future going to be working with some kind of financial processor, and Stripe is far from the worse of the bunch as far as that is concerned.

Ghost is FOSS, that’s part of the whole point.

A lot of us know by now that Substack has a Nazi problem.

What on Earth? They hosted like three Nazis, which is part of the overall commitment to letting people talk which leads them to host a ton of really good people. And then, when everyone on the internet yelled at them for it, raising a pretty reasonable counterpoint, they kicked the Nazis off. That all happened over a year ago.

It not only profits from fascist voices, it actively promotes their work and recruits them

I read the citation for this statement. What it says is very different from actively promoting the work of fascists and recruiting them. There is a whole fascinating conversation to be had about why some high-profile lefty journalists like Taibbi and Greenwald all of a sudden became Nazis, but it’s very misleading to assign 100% of the blame in this way to Substack, purely because they were working with those people before it really became completely clear to everyone that they for whatever bizarre reason had become Nazis. It’s a lot more complex situation that is being summarized in this extremely glib spin-soaked fashion.

And it’s funded by Silicon Valley anti-democracy billionaires like Marc Andreesen

Okay, fair enough. This is pretty interesting and I hadn’t known it.

On the other hand, Substack also hosts Sy Hersh, Tim Snyder, Salman Rushdie, and God knows who else. If they were planning to slant their coverage based on the fact that Andreesen’s company gave them $15 million in 2019 (which they then quickly turned around and gave big chunks of to working journalists), you’d think they would be making some kind of effort to downplay the leftist voices which they are currently hosting, outnumbering the “problematic” voices which might be there but which I have literally never run across there.

Elon Musk also, apparently, tried to buy Substack in 2023, and they told him to fuck off.

This whole article reads like a bad-faith hit piece aimed at one of the organizations that actually is trying to provide a space for good journalism including left-wing authors, and making sure that it’s sustainable and they can get paid. By trumping up some various things into much bigger deals than they need to be.

I wonder who would be interested in ginning up big bad-faith hit jobs against good news outlets, encouraging people on the left to savage and abandon them for various little misdemeanors until the only news outlets left are either bought and purchased by open fascists, or too small and scattered to make a difference?

A lot of the terrifying aspects of slinging money around that people are talking about in this thread actually do become terrifying, once Bitcoin and friends are your platform. Fraud? Refunds? Someone hacked your server and stole your wallet? All that stuff is now 100% your problem, there is absolutely no way to “undo” if something wrong happens, and no infrastructure in place to handle any of it or any professionals with already a simple system in place for it. Or, if there is an infrastructure, it is based on a shady company which is orders of magnitude more sketchy and predatory than the (already pretty sketchy and predatory) banking system.

I actually think 3% is roughly a fair fee for the processor to charge you, in exchange for agreeing to worry about all of that nonsense on your behalf so you can just collect the money. For in-person transactions, it’s mostly just a predatory rent payment, but for online transactions where the possibility for malfeasance is amplified, it makes sense to me.

Why do you hate fun

Yeah. I think a lot of the people in these comments are people just not experienced with business who assume that it is scary and impossible. There are certain aspects that are hairy if you don’t know what you’re getting into, but the whole system is designed to make it pretty easy. On the whole pie chart of “pain in the ass aspects,” there are some pretty big slices in places, but “I have to set up a Stripe account oh no” is not one of them lol. That one is a tiny tiny sliver.

Even if you decide to collect payments yourself and do payouts to merchants yourself, like a little Etsy or Amazon, dealing with the headaches involved with sending and receiving the cash will still be a minority of your problems. Although they will jump up to being significant.

I kind of want to express interest for getting involved with this thing with you, since I do think it’s a really good idea, but IDK if I really want to take it on. I do think it’s a really good idea, though. Basically add the “operated by actual humans” aspect to online e-commerce as it is being added for online social media.

I have run several businesses, some of them on this micro-scale. That’s how I know that part is trivial.

You can literally set it up for yourself for free, if you want to see: https://stripe.com/