Odds and Ends - Epstein and the Enshittification of Substack

A couple of topics today:

L’affaire du Epstein

I have been avoiding all temptation to comment on the Epstein files blow up. Not because I don’t care, or that it isn’t relevant, but mainly because I just don’t care. Rich entitled fuckwits doing rich entitled shit, news at eleven. Or as the incomparable Heather Cox Richardson had in her July 18 missive:

The Epstein story is about more than the sex trafficking of girls. It is also about rich and privileged people evading accountability for breaking the law. MAGA likely jumped on the story for both of these reasons when they thought a coverup was protecting Democratic politicians and Hollywood elites.

But the story is also about a group of elite people who think they are better than the rest of us and have the right to dominate anyone that is not part of their group, particularly people of color, Black Americans, and women, no matter what the law says.

Ayup.

Still, it was fun early when the media wisdom was that it wouldn’t stick, that another outrage would arise and push it out. That the “base” would not be interested. That it was just tawdry to a point that even I wouldn’t go all in on it.

But then I read the latest from Nick Cotaggio at the one Anti-Anti site I pay for1. In essence, it is an acknowledgement that Trump was speed-running his playbook for avoidance of culpability and sowing doubt on his obvious vulnerability. A lengthy pull:

Now we have the answer. He knew the Journal story was coming and scrambled to get out in front of it before it did him real damage among Epstein-credulous populists. And the only way he could think to do so was by throwing his full weight behind turning it into a new loyalty test for MAGA—to the unprecedented point of purporting to excommunicate fans from his movement if they didn’t immediately adopt his “hoax” gloss on what was happening.

It’s the same M.O. he used in 2020 to prepare the ground for his “stop the steal” campaign. Months before Election Day, with polls showing him losing badly to Biden, he began planting seeds of doubt in supporters’ minds that defeat in November could only be the result of chicanery. When defeat arrived, they were primed to view it through that lens. He had warned them that election rigging was afoot, and now here it was.

His problem with the Journal’s Epstein story is that he didn’t have months to prepare the ground to discredit it this time. He had days. So he speed-ran his 2020 playbook, essentially, compressing months of mutterings about the next Democratic “hoax” into 72 or so hours of frantically insisting that Trumpists must choose between believing in him or caring about Epstein. It was an impromptu experiment in whether he could brute-force a sea change in opinion among his cult on one of its core convictions in less than a week by turning the demagoguery dial to 11.

I think it succeeded.

Emphasis mine. Nick here is arguing that indeed, this might be bad, but Trump is gonna weather it fine, and really, all the Never Trump pontificating is not really effective. The usual anti-anti rhetoric, never quite saying that they are all in on Trump, but that they can pretend to hang on to their old small-c “conservative” bona fides.

Yawn.

As indeed, his next paragraph lays out how he (and by extension the anti-anti’s all think):

“Nothing unifies MAGA more than a little bit of suspected fake news,” a Republican close to the White House chirped to Politico. That’s the last five days of Trump’s messaging strategy distilled to 12 words. Me or the fake news? Us or them? Once it came to that, there was never a doubt which way a movement created by and for demagogues would tilt. That a damaging story published by a reputable newspaper would cause Trump supporters to grow less skeptical of the president, not more, is an elegant commentary on how corrupting populism is.

And in 99 out of 100 cases, this is probably right. But so far, all the haor-on-fire responses and flailing that we are seeing emanate from the Oval Office seem to not be bending the narrative in a meaningful way.

In fact the bloviating seems to be causing a Streisand Effect, especially in the most invested MAGA ecosystem. See, they are true believers in the full conspiracy, and Trump has been playing along for so long that he can no longer credibly say that their kooky beliefs are not rational, and that it is all on the hated shitlibs.

That’s why I say that the Journal’s bombshell is effectively, and ironically, the end of the scandal as a political threat to Trump rather than the start. MAGA simply lacks the civic integrity to keep pursuing the truth about Epstein now that it’s been transformed, stupidly and cynically, into a referendum on the media. If they cared earnestly about the truth, Thursday’s scoop would galvanize them to demand more answers from the DOJ. What they actually care about is having their suspicions confirmed that prominent Democrats are degenerate child traffickers.

If the Epstein files aren’t going to do that for them—worse, if there’s a chance that they’ll show that Donald Trump is a degenerate—then they’d rather not know. They’ll back off and let the matter drop, especially once the president’s limited hangout gives them a pretext to say they’re satisfied.

I am not so sure that this is going to be the trajectory.

I will add that Nick goes on to say that “Sure, there are some dead-enders who will stick to the Q staple of pedophilia” but again, it is mealy mouthed yawning for the rubes, and a belief that Trump will weather this.

The Substack Series C funding close

Yesterday, I did a short post about why Substack has become almost hostile to us free-riders:

The end is nigh: The Enshittification will continue until morale improves...

Fellow Substack Free rider Dave Karpf has some great observations. Things are lookin’ bleak

Sweaty's CornerGeoff Anderson

Alas, I learned a few more things.

First, this C series funding was open for two full years. That means they have been pimping this thing to investors for a long time to get their nut.

That is insane, almost like Mike Johnson leaving voting on controversial bills open overnight to break down the will of their holdouts.

And they are now a “unicorn” or a private early stage company that is valued at more than a billion dollars.

While I am not privy to the details, I do have to believe that to get this bitch to close, they needed to constantly tweak their strategy to show a path to profitability. This isn’t the ZIRP era, where capital was essentially free, no, they have to convince the investors that they have a plan to become profitable, and to GROW.

That led me to do a little digging, and I found this 2023 vintage research (likely produced when the series C round opened up). It does a good job laying out their ethos, and their business model. Essentially the internet made publishing practically free, and that they could build a distribution model that would prioritize content creators (remember, in 2017, ZIRP and the explosion of influencers on Facebook, Insta, and Youtube were making serious coin), and they could aid people with tools on the back end and when they monetize, the 90/10 split was how Substack got their operating capital.

That is nice theory, but the reality is that as of 2023, the top performers were as such:

As of August 2023, more than 90% of Substack's earnings come from the top 5% of creators, as most writers on the platform don't charge for their content. This revenue concentration highlights the importance of attracting and retaining high-performing creators for Substack's business model.

I suspect that this remains the case today. And who were the biggest pages as of August 2023?

I knew Heather Cox Richardson was a monster, but dayum it ain’t even close. Sure, these have grown larger, but still, they have some whales that they farm, and a lot of us free riders and “undesirables” that really are a drain on their infrastructure spend2.

That is, 95% of the people who publish here are not providing any meaningful revenue to Substack. People like me with two thousand subscribers, and people like Dave Karpf with his 10K+.

But also the smaller paid sites, the ones with tens or hundreds of paid subscribers. I know that for these people, that is an important revenue stream that makes a meaningful difference in their lives, but to the leaders at Substack, you are a drain.

Also, this explains their desire to continually add features like live videos, audio podcasts, voiceovers, and the like. As they have tried to grab refugees from Twitter and Tik Tok, they have blown up their need for storage and traffic costs, but if it allows the growth of the high-value influencers, that 10% of the top 5% of their publishers becomes more attractive.

Yet, now that they finally closed their series c, the new tranche of investors are going to want to see progress on breaking even and a shift to profitability.

And trust me and my 27 years of product management experience, there aren’t any knobs they can turn with their current light skim to capture enough money.

Back in 2023 when the series started, they were generating about $7M in revenue, and now, with a lot of growth they are estimated to be close to $45M. However, to credibly be valued at $1B, they need about $100M in ARR3, and there ain’t no fucking universe where their business model lets that happen.

Nope, the enhshittification toolbox is pretty specific, and Ads are coming. And probably the worst fucking way.

Not the revenue share like on Youtube (especially for us small-fry, maybe those with tens of thousand paid subscribers will get some split, but all the smaller pages? Nada) but where they place the ads, collect the eyeballs (views) and pocketing the moolah.

And it will be a short time until they apply the Google/Meta model of fucking the metrics and screwing the ad purchasers.

I do want to point out that the accuracy and utility of the metrics that Substack makes available to us small fish is abysmal. As they enshittify, they will have to build a lot more robust reporting tools. Alas, they probably won’t help the publishers, but will be essential to the advertisers.

My final thoughts:

I will stay here, living with my throttled reach and pressure to conform to their desires until the ads come in. At that point, I will pick up my marbles and go. I will likely just spin up a Ghost instance and move all you magnificent people over there. For me, the ~ $500 a year is not a big deal (I am fortunate that I can easily afford that).

I will miss the Notes feature, and I will still read people (and support them here) but I draw the lines at them forcing ads. That horsepucky about being deeply committed to providing a platform for writers to publish will finally be retired.

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