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The claim that the funding doesn't come from a "billionaire owned outlet" doesn't really track if you look at the investors[0] in Substack. I count at least one

The claim that the funding doesn't come from a "billionaire owned outlet" doesn't really track if you look at the investors[0] in Substack. I count at least one billionaire-run fund in that list. There was also an incident a couple months ago where Elon Musk accused Taibbi of working for Substack, which he denied, but in leaked texts says they "originally hired" him[1], which I find confusing. [0] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/substack/company_financials https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/substack/company_fin... [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/04/10/elon-musk-shares-private-text-exchange-he-had-with-twitter-files-journalist-matt-taibbi/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/04/10/elon-musk-...

harry8 3y ago
> if you look at the investors[0] in Substack FFS this is like claiming you are funded by BoA or JPM if your salary is deposited there. They are literally paid by their subscribers, Substack is a mere payment & publication tool. Substack do not pay them. Moreover w.r.t. Taibbi he has picked fights with his employers and quit at the first hint of them trying to influence his work. His credibility on that front is actually excellent and better than anyone at the NYT, for example (Who may be excellent but can't point to a history like that).
- mmcwilliams 3y ago
  Claiming that a private company with significant investment in it has "owners" is not controversial. It's unclear to me why this bothers you so much. This isn't intended as an attack on Taibbi whatsoever, it is just plain wrong to say that a for-profit company funded by some of the largest SV funds is not an owned entity. You can make the case that because Substack writers do not have an editorial process and fact checking that it is distinct from other news outlets and you'd be correct, but it doesn't change the fact that it is a platform that billionaire(s) have a financial interest in.
  - harry8 3y ago
    Taibbi is paid by his subscribers. The end. He's not influenced by the vendors of his pen or his pc or any of his other suppliers. Each of those supplier companies has owners and nobody need care. If substack the company don't like his writing and try /anything/ at all, he takes _his_ business away from substack. Substack work for Taibbi. Taibbi is the customer. Substack have as much influence on the stories he reports as your bank rep does on your work. Substack's owners are wholly irrelevant. The point is that Substack is completely, totally and utterly beside the point when it comes to journalistic influence & integrity. It's unclear to me how you are missing this point. The ownership of substack has zero relevance here. None. As opposed the ownership of the WSJ and Fox News (or msnbc, cnn, nyt, etc) which clearly and obviously is extremely relevant to the output of any journalist /employed/ by those companies.
    - mmcwilliams 3y ago
      You're making the claim that Substack is making no money on the subscriptions? And that the infrastructure they provide to process these subscriptions is completely decoupled from their company to the point that if they banned a writers account their subscribers are totally portable? This is an impressive feat, if true.
      - harry8 3y ago
        Taibbi pays bank fees. And tax. And his isp. And for stationary. And substack to provide his cms and payment gateway. He is the customer in /all/ of those transactions. There is no credible claim of substack trying to influence writers. Unsurprisingly substack is used by wonderful journalists and idiotic charlatans alike. Glenn Greenwald has left substack for locals for his own reasons, i don't think he has any argument with substack. Seems to have been frictionless including transfer of subscriber credit from one platform to another.
- undersuit 3y ago
  "FFS", then I'm going to make the argument that mainstream media is funded by subscribers too! Substack isn't much different from a newspaper.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    Mainstream media is funded by advertisers, more than (or, in the case of TV/radio abd some others, instead of) subscribers.
    - undersuit 3y ago
      Yeah advertising at me! The subscriber, free content or not.
  - harry8 3y ago
    Mainstream media has "owners" who "fire" editors when they don't like the stories being written. Journalist pitch stories at those editors. See Rupert Murdoch and the Times of London, The News of the World, The Sun, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and Fox News. For example, note how many times Tony Blair and separately Gordon Brown sought audiences with Rupert Murdoch. You subscribe to the NYT or WSJ you use whatever payment gateway they set up and you read content using whatever CMS they employ. You don't subscribe to substack it isn't possible. You subscribe to say Racket (which is Taibbi) or separately Shellenberger and use whatever payment gateway they each seperatly set up and you read content using whatever CMS they employ. Substack is a service provider and one they can easily leave as Glenn Greenwald has in the shift of his news service to locals and rumble. So with this information you can start making better arguments.
    - undersuit 3y ago
      https://mashable.com/article/substack-writers-leaving-misinformation https://mashable.com/article/substack-writers-leaving-misinf... Just admit it's not a perfect thing, just another flawed alternative.
      - 3y ago
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  > Substack do not pay them. "When we started Substack in mid-2017, the future for writers was frightening. [...] We started experimenting with advances, paying a small number of writers sums ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 to cover them for a few months as they got established on Substack. [...] With Substack Pro, we pay a writer an upfront sum to cover their first year on the platform. [...] In return for that financial security, a Pro writer agrees to let Substack keep 85% of the subscription revenue in that first year." https://on.substack.com/p/why-we-pay-writers https://on.substack.com/p/why-we-pay-writers
  - harry8 3y ago
    Oh come on. Seriously. No. Come on. If we're discussing Freddy De Boer this is relevant. He was on that deal. Which they won't renew and can't easily withdraw fwiw. Kinda different to being fired by Rupert Murdoch. Or having your story spiked, when it was 100% true but went against "the narrative" when that narrative was also false. Do you have evidence that Taibbi is on this deal and has lied about it? Because that's a huge claim to make.
    - jazzyjackson 3y ago
      Huh. I didn't know Taibbi made a big deal about not taking the salary up front. I misread your comment to mean "substack doesn't pay any of its writers, they all make their money off subscription" and couldn't resist the citation. Carry on.

harry8 3y ago

> if you look at the investors[0] in Substack FFS this is like claiming you are funded by BoA or JPM if your salary is deposited there. They are literally paid by their subscribers, Substack is a mere payment & publication tool. Substack do not pay them. Moreover w.r.t. Taibbi he has picked fights with his employers and quit at the first hint of them trying to influence his work. His credibility on that front is actually excellent and better than anyone at the NYT, for example (Who may be excellent but can't point to a history like that).

mmcwilliams 3y ago
Claiming that a private company with significant investment in it has "owners" is not controversial. It's unclear to me why this bothers you so much. This isn't intended as an attack on Taibbi whatsoever, it is just plain wrong to say that a for-profit company funded by some of the largest SV funds is not an owned entity. You can make the case that because Substack writers do not have an editorial process and fact checking that it is distinct from other news outlets and you'd be correct, but it doesn't change the fact that it is a platform that billionaire(s) have a financial interest in.
- harry8 3y ago
  Taibbi is paid by his subscribers. The end. He's not influenced by the vendors of his pen or his pc or any of his other suppliers. Each of those supplier companies has owners and nobody need care. If substack the company don't like his writing and try /anything/ at all, he takes _his_ business away from substack. Substack work for Taibbi. Taibbi is the customer. Substack have as much influence on the stories he reports as your bank rep does on your work. Substack's owners are wholly irrelevant. The point is that Substack is completely, totally and utterly beside the point when it comes to journalistic influence & integrity. It's unclear to me how you are missing this point. The ownership of substack has zero relevance here. None. As opposed the ownership of the WSJ and Fox News (or msnbc, cnn, nyt, etc) which clearly and obviously is extremely relevant to the output of any journalist /employed/ by those companies.
  - mmcwilliams 3y ago
    You're making the claim that Substack is making no money on the subscriptions? And that the infrastructure they provide to process these subscriptions is completely decoupled from their company to the point that if they banned a writers account their subscribers are totally portable? This is an impressive feat, if true.
    - harry8 3y ago
      Taibbi pays bank fees. And tax. And his isp. And for stationary. And substack to provide his cms and payment gateway. He is the customer in /all/ of those transactions. There is no credible claim of substack trying to influence writers. Unsurprisingly substack is used by wonderful journalists and idiotic charlatans alike. Glenn Greenwald has left substack for locals for his own reasons, i don't think he has any argument with substack. Seems to have been frictionless including transfer of subscriber credit from one platform to another.
undersuit 3y ago
"FFS", then I'm going to make the argument that mainstream media is funded by subscribers too! Substack isn't much different from a newspaper.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Mainstream media is funded by advertisers, more than (or, in the case of TV/radio abd some others, instead of) subscribers.
  - undersuit 3y ago
    Yeah advertising at me! The subscriber, free content or not.
- harry8 3y ago
  Mainstream media has "owners" who "fire" editors when they don't like the stories being written. Journalist pitch stories at those editors. See Rupert Murdoch and the Times of London, The News of the World, The Sun, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and Fox News. For example, note how many times Tony Blair and separately Gordon Brown sought audiences with Rupert Murdoch. You subscribe to the NYT or WSJ you use whatever payment gateway they set up and you read content using whatever CMS they employ. You don't subscribe to substack it isn't possible. You subscribe to say Racket (which is Taibbi) or separately Shellenberger and use whatever payment gateway they each seperatly set up and you read content using whatever CMS they employ. Substack is a service provider and one they can easily leave as Glenn Greenwald has in the shift of his news service to locals and rumble. So with this information you can start making better arguments.
  - undersuit 3y ago
    https://mashable.com/article/substack-writers-leaving-misinformation https://mashable.com/article/substack-writers-leaving-misinf... Just admit it's not a perfect thing, just another flawed alternative.
    - 3y ago
jazzyjackson 3y ago
> Substack do not pay them. "When we started Substack in mid-2017, the future for writers was frightening. [...] We started experimenting with advances, paying a small number of writers sums ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 to cover them for a few months as they got established on Substack. [...] With Substack Pro, we pay a writer an upfront sum to cover their first year on the platform. [...] In return for that financial security, a Pro writer agrees to let Substack keep 85% of the subscription revenue in that first year." https://on.substack.com/p/why-we-pay-writers https://on.substack.com/p/why-we-pay-writers
- harry8 3y ago
  Oh come on. Seriously. No. Come on. If we're discussing Freddy De Boer this is relevant. He was on that deal. Which they won't renew and can't easily withdraw fwiw. Kinda different to being fired by Rupert Murdoch. Or having your story spiked, when it was 100% true but went against "the narrative" when that narrative was also false. Do you have evidence that Taibbi is on this deal and has lied about it? Because that's a huge claim to make.
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    Huh. I didn't know Taibbi made a big deal about not taking the salary up front. I misread your comment to mean "substack doesn't pay any of its writers, they all make their money off subscription" and couldn't resist the citation. Carry on.