this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
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They are being paid by subscribers, not by substack. I am not on substack's side here, but that detail seems quite relevant if we're interested in painting an accurate picture of what's going on.
If they were putting Nazi content on substack and no individuals were subscribing to read it, they would be earning 0.
Substack is profiting from those same subscribers, no doubt.
Again- If you sold widgets door-to-door for a 20% commission, would you say you were being paid by the people who buy the widgets? I doubt many would.
In that case I'd be selling something made by the entity giving me commission - what people want and pay for is something made by someone other than me. In this case the people creating the content are the same people drawing the subscribers, so it's more accurate to say substack takes a cut of their subscription income than to say substack pays them.
If I stop selling widgets the company still has the exact same widgets and can get anyone else to sell them. If a renowned nazi writer (bleh) takes their content to another platform, substack no longer has that content (or the author's presence on their platform) to profit from.
Sort of like Substack's servers then?
You think the platform is the widget, I think the content is the widget. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
Your words:
They're paying for the convenience of using Substack's servers. The Nazi could be spreading their bigotry through direct email, for example, but that is not a profit-generating enterprise. Substack, however, is a profit-generating enterprise. Notice that they said they aren't even willing to demonetize Nazi accounts. They are happy to make a profit from Nazi content. And for some reason, you think that is defensible.