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I know, which is why this article reads like a dog whistle for them to leave. It conveniently and glaringly ignores e.g. matt taibbi who criticises all of this

I know, which is why this article reads like a dog whistle for them to leave. It conveniently and glaringly ignores e.g. matt taibbi who criticises all of this more than anyone. The article is also self contradictory and contains a number of lies - It says the NYtimes becoming subscriber-only is "good journalism", but substack being subscriber-only cannot be good because only ad-supported journalism can be centrist (silliest twist of argument i ve heard in a long time - While the subject of the article is deplatforming, none of the journalists mentioned were actually deplatformed. In fact Greenwald , Weiss etc could easily find a high paying job in almost any newspaper of their liking, but they choose not to.

hkt 5y ago
I saw the same flaws in the article as you: it is clearly clickbait junk.
rchaud 5y ago
The difference between the NYTimes/WSJ type publication and a Substack soloist should be obvious. Last month, the NYT broke the story that one of the Ozy Media cofounders impersonated a Youtube executive on a call w/ GS, and a cascading series of developments now has Ozy execs facing federal charges. The WSJ's reporting of course broke the story of the Theranos scam. A soloist on Substack has no incentive to break stories. They are basically writing op-eds on news stories others have broken.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  I m not sure i follow. Substack exists for 4 years. Why wouldn't e.g. greenwald break a big story, like he did before? Also what incentive did WSJ have to break the Theranos story? Both WSJ and nytimes had written accolades about Theranos in the past and, of course, certain lies. Do they have some kind of monopoly to the truth?
happytoexplain 5y ago
I don't normally read Wired, so I'm not defending them as a publication, but I can't find any of your accusations in the article. They don't suggest even implicitly that their readers should avoid Substack - they just point out the good and the bad, and quote perspectives from multiple sides about their business model, and don't seem to be cherry-picking those perspectives or engineering an image. They even say multiple times that Substack's founder's arguments against the traditional attention-economy model are true and valid. In fact, this seems to paint Substack in a more positive and objective light than I usually see people write about it in. >the NYtimes becoming subscriber-only is "good journalism" Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, but it says "[social media] broke the preexisting business models[, but] plenty of publications, The New York Times perhaps chief among them, are managing to make big bucks from good writing." They seem to be contrasting the models of NYT and Substack, not comparing them, saying that NYT is an example of the traditional model. Now, if I'm right, that's really dumb, since NYT makes most of its money from subscriptions, not from the ads (I think), but they don't seem to be committing a double-standard like you're describing. >substack being subscriber-only cannot be good because only ad-supported journalism can be centrist Are you referring to this part, where they paraphrase a professor? >the majority of ad-supported TV networks, Fox News excepted, are resolutely centrist and play to the lowest common denominator in order to attract the broadest possible range of advertisers If so, that was only a single counter-example, not presented as evidence that Substack's model is bad, and it matches my experience. Yes, they shouldn't have singled out Fox as their example of an exception, but the point that polarized outlets are technically a minority seems correct. They seem like the majority, because they have a dominant mind share and they are all people talk about. The ad model pushes outlets in one of two directions: Cater hard to one audience (be extreme and opinionated), or cater broadly to as many people as possible (be boring and non-offensive), and, numerically, most outlets still attempt the latter strategy, however otherwise flawed (e.g. technical incompetence) some subset of those outlets may be. Even regardless, they don't seem to go on from that perspective to say anything like "being subscriber-only cannot be good", not of Substack nor of any other outlet. >none of the journalists mentioned were actually deplatformed Though Greenwald, you, and I don't think he was deplatformed, everybody I know who likes Greenwald, and many people I don't know, it seems, believe he was. They usually say he was effectively forced to resign. It was definitely wrong not to touch on that disagreement, but it is apparently a popular opinion among his proponents.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  > They don't suggest even implicitly that their readers should avoid Substack Which part of "Substack Is Now a Playground for the Deplatformed" did you miss? > They seem to be contrasting the models of NYT and Substack, not comparing them NYT has also become very polarizing since going subscriber-only, this was another point curiously missing. > so, that was only a single counter-example, not presented as evidence that Substack's model is bad If not, then what would even be the point bringing it up? The whole argument is that substack's model is inherently polarizing thus bad. That argument does not hold up to scrutiny btw: there are in fact many small, polarized, ad-supported media, what you don't see is mainstream ones, because due to their nature and massive size the mainstream ones have to cater to the average. Substack could equally be the same if they were as big as mainstream news, and no evidence is presented to the contrary. > verybody I know who likes Greenwald They believe he was fired/displaced. Deplatformed means banished (evidently, he has a platform), and he could probably easily grow an audience anywhere I think your own reading of this hastily written hit piece is ... very charitable. That said, i hope substack fails. There shouldn't be a need for such intermediaries between writers and their audience. I hope substack proves to have been a temporary solution to a temporary problem.

hkt 5y ago

I saw the same flaws in the article as you: it is clearly clickbait junk.

rchaud 5y ago

The difference between the NYTimes/WSJ type publication and a Substack soloist should be obvious. Last month, the NYT broke the story that one of the Ozy Media cofounders impersonated a Youtube executive on a call w/ GS, and a cascading series of developments now has Ozy execs facing federal charges. The WSJ's reporting of course broke the story of the Theranos scam. A soloist on Substack has no incentive to break stories. They are basically writing op-eds on news stories others have broken.

cblconfederate 5y ago
I m not sure i follow. Substack exists for 4 years. Why wouldn't e.g. greenwald break a big story, like he did before? Also what incentive did WSJ have to break the Theranos story? Both WSJ and nytimes had written accolades about Theranos in the past and, of course, certain lies. Do they have some kind of monopoly to the truth?

happytoexplain 5y ago

I don't normally read Wired, so I'm not defending them as a publication, but I can't find any of your accusations in the article. They don't suggest even implicitly that their readers should avoid Substack - they just point out the good and the bad, and quote perspectives from multiple sides about their business model, and don't seem to be cherry-picking those perspectives or engineering an image. They even say multiple times that Substack's founder's arguments against the traditional attention-economy model are true and valid. In fact, this seems to paint Substack in a more positive and objective light than I usually see people write about it in. >the NYtimes becoming subscriber-only is "good journalism" Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, but it says "[social media] broke the preexisting business models[, but] plenty of publications, The New York Times perhaps chief among them, are managing to make big bucks from good writing." They seem to be contrasting the models of NYT and Substack, not comparing them, saying that NYT is an example of the traditional model. Now, if I'm right, that's really dumb, since NYT makes most of its money from subscriptions, not from the ads (I think), but they don't seem to be committing a double-standard like you're describing. >substack being subscriber-only cannot be good because only ad-supported journalism can be centrist Are you referring to this part, where they paraphrase a professor? >the majority of ad-supported TV networks, Fox News excepted, are resolutely centrist and play to the lowest common denominator in order to attract the broadest possible range of advertisers If so, that was only a single counter-example, not presented as evidence that Substack's model is bad, and it matches my experience. Yes, they shouldn't have singled out Fox as their example of an exception, but the point that polarized outlets are technically a minority seems correct. They seem like the majority, because they have a dominant mind share and they are all people talk about. The ad model pushes outlets in one of two directions: Cater hard to one audience (be extreme and opinionated), or cater broadly to as many people as possible (be boring and non-offensive), and, numerically, most outlets still attempt the latter strategy, however otherwise flawed (e.g. technical incompetence) some subset of those outlets may be. Even regardless, they don't seem to go on from that perspective to say anything like "being subscriber-only cannot be good", not of Substack nor of any other outlet. >none of the journalists mentioned were actually deplatformed Though Greenwald, you, and I don't think he was deplatformed, everybody I know who likes Greenwald, and many people I don't know, it seems, believe he was. They usually say he was effectively forced to resign. It was definitely wrong not to touch on that disagreement, but it is apparently a popular opinion among his proponents.

cblconfederate 5y ago
> They don't suggest even implicitly that their readers should avoid Substack Which part of "Substack Is Now a Playground for the Deplatformed" did you miss? > They seem to be contrasting the models of NYT and Substack, not comparing them NYT has also become very polarizing since going subscriber-only, this was another point curiously missing. > so, that was only a single counter-example, not presented as evidence that Substack's model is bad If not, then what would even be the point bringing it up? The whole argument is that substack's model is inherently polarizing thus bad. That argument does not hold up to scrutiny btw: there are in fact many small, polarized, ad-supported media, what you don't see is mainstream ones, because due to their nature and massive size the mainstream ones have to cater to the average. Substack could equally be the same if they were as big as mainstream news, and no evidence is presented to the contrary. > verybody I know who likes Greenwald They believe he was fired/displaced. Deplatformed means banished (evidently, he has a platform), and he could probably easily grow an audience anywhere I think your own reading of this hastily written hit piece is ... very charitable. That said, i hope substack fails. There shouldn't be a need for such intermediaries between writers and their audience. I hope substack proves to have been a temporary solution to a temporary problem.