Nazi's and Substack

For me, consuming resources and free-riding are good options. But bigger audience paid newsletters who remain are complicit in the shit-show.

I suspect that you are somewhat aware of the recent kerfuffle over the newsletters by outright Nazi’s on Substack. On November 28, Jonathan Katz published an article in the Atlantic: “Substack has a Nazi Problem¹” where his careful analysis showed a raft of outright white Nationalists/Nazi’s who are publishing via Substack, and many of them are also taking payments².

This has caused more than a few other denizens of Substack to question their ethics. More than 200 far more influential writers than me signed a letter asking Substack to clarify their position.

And one of the founders, Hamish McKenzie, did respond. He basically said that while he (they) dislike Nazi’s, Nazi’s are out there, and they deserve to post, that it wan’t their place to filter them, and that we should combat them with words.

He (they) also waffled about the free speech implications, and how it wasn’t their place to kick them off³. We are left with the confirmation that they are perfectly happy to have the Nazi’s on their site, and that they like the 10% skim they rake in from the fees of the subscribers to Nazi assholes.

Many of the big sites I am on that signed on that letter are making plans to move. Yesterday, I got my first notification from Talia Lavin’s “The Sword and the Sandwich” new home on Buttondown. Furthermore, Molly White's “Citation Needed” and Casey Newton’s “Platformer” are looking at their options to leave.

My stance

I am torn. On one hand, Substack has been very good at helping build my small audience for this page, and for my Product Management site. I do not accept money, and I doubt that I will ever get enough of an audience to be worth setting up the paid options.

I have moved one of my dormant sites to Buttondown (The PM Dude) coupled with Wordpress, so I have my proof of concept.

But, do I need to move? As I am a free-rider on the paid subs, I am a net negative to Substack. If I don’t monetize, and send a ton of newsletters, that will ding their Mailgun monthly bill for email, plus all the costs to host my newsletters on their infrastructure.

I am a net negative to their bottom line. And I know a LOT of newsletters are similar, otherwise there wouldn't be this full-court-press by Substack to encourage us small fries to set up paid subscriptions.

If enough of us keep our sites free, then we will be slowly bleeding their resources, and that seems … good.

Where I am disappointed

Sorry, gonna rag on The Bulwark again. They have a HUGE site. Tens of thousands of paid members, hundreds of thousands of total subscribers, and 10% of their revenue is going to help fund these Nazi assholes’ infrastructure.

It would be nice to hear them take a stand, and yes, move away. If enough major personalities and pages begin to take their business elsewhere, that would really fuck up Substack’s shit.

But, if people like Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Glenn Greenwald and others stay, and keep cashing the checks, then they all become Nazi adjacent, and fuck them. I already thought they all were trash, but this is yet another layer of shittiness in their shit sandwich.

Bad choices all around

For me, to be a drain on their resource pool is a decent approach. But those who are supposedly sensitive to the fascistic right who remain here, cashing the checks, and ignoring their complicity, well, I have no sympathy.

You’re selling your souls, and you are getting nothing of value in exchange.

1. Alas, that “gift” article will only work for two weeks, here is the paywalled article after that time: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/substack-extremism-nazi-white-supremacy-newsletters/676156/

2. N.b. when you make this argument anywhere on SS, you will get flooded with people commenting that the identified newsletters aren’t monetized. That is bullshit. They do monetize, and many of them have hundreds or more paid subs. They just do not paywall, so you do not have to pay money to read. That is really a distinction that is fucking meaningless, and leads to a disingenuous argument.

3. It was noted many times over that the founders were perfectly happy to ban pornography and sex workers, so they can and do make personal values judgements.