Is the 'I'm a Giver, not a Taker' profile badge a bad idea?
A performative paid subscriber flag may have unintended consequences. Especially for the many cash-poor pub/subs still parasitising Substack.
For years, we’ve told ourselves that whatever we read or watch on the web should be free, whether it’s news, videos, music or podcasts. At some point, “It’s online, so it should be free”, became a default mindset, one which now actively suppresses the creativity we crave.
As a fiction writer, it’s perhaps fortunate that many books continue to retain some value, in either electronic or printed format, somehow resisting a descent to the bottom on pricing. For now.
The uncomfortable truth is that any creative process costs money, no matter the creator behind it. Human writers, journalists, musicians, and podcasters all have bills to pay, software to purchase and equipment to maintain. They labour over their creations, giving up many hours of time to craft something which might stand out from the crowd. Their time deserves to be compensated. But as very few want to or are capable of paying a multitude of them directly, creators are left with these limited and mostly unappealing choices:
Promote subscriptions through automated tools and social media.
Hide content behind a paywall, either partially or fully.
Beg for donations via platforms like Patreon and Ko-Fi.
Create subscriber-only, time intensive exclusives, e.g. chat, podcasts, livestreams.
Solicit sponsors for product placement.
Run overly-intrusive ads.
Switch to another creative form, e.g. writing ←→ knitting
Create for free, essentially making it a hobby.
Quit creating altogether.
The rise in algorithm-driven platforms, SEO clickbait, and increasingly desperate monetisation tactics is the obvious outcome of demanding (however passively) everything for free and expecting creators to accept this. I’m sure ‘sponsored content’ will increasingly creep into Substack newsletters, just as magazine style aggregators are tempting solo creators to syndicate their work with tempting high-vis opportunities, even cash.
It’s easy for creators who call their efforts a ‘hobby’ or a ‘passion project’ to shrug their shoulders when faced with the above. But if you do need to make a living – from necessity rather than any greed – and own a business to package and sell your creative output as a commercial product, then the “everything should be free” mindset is unsustainable, if not positively harmful.
So next time you come read a newsletter, watch a video, listen to a podcast, or ingest and enjoy something you perceive as providing genuine value, consider supporting it. Not out of charity, but because good work is worth paying for — if you can afford to.
It’s this last point I want to address, particularly in relation to Substack’s newly minted ‘paying subscriber badge’ feature:
Yes, those with sufficient disposable income to support one or more creators have had a new badge automatically assigned to their profile. It means performative patronage is now a thing. It even has a certain smugness to it, redolent of parental one-upmanship at the school gate when discussing vacations. Shame remains a powerful social motivator to keep up with the Jones’s. We’re only human, after all.
Nevertheless, it makes sense for Substack to deliberately raise the profile of those it profits from. Previously, the writers themselves have been the target, via bestseller charts, other algorithmic means and invite-only parties. But of course it’s those paying for a subscription who are the primary source of a publication’s income – and hence Substack’s cut of the same. I’m surprised this avenue hasn’t been pursued more avidly by other platforms, beyond simple gamification strategies and kudos points. Perhaps it’s because Substack stands out as currently refraining from using direct advertising.
More importantly, this profile badge is in effect ‘I’ve got sub money to spend’ flag. Which comes with a downside to its wielders that perhaps hasn’t been appreciated – not yet, at least. Because impoverished creators (and the omni-present scam bots), now have an easy identifier to target ‘Me! Me!’ marketing and pity-me pitches.
So do make a list. Target these lit-up marks, with their real jobs, fabulous leisure time and charitable ethics. Schmooze with those who might feed on such attention, at least enough for them to splurge another few bucks on your publication.
Substack might even go one step further within their UI-fluid dashboard…
What about a dashboard setting which actively promotes my publication to the generous Givers, not the miserly Takers? Show me their money, Substack!
How can these tactics not make sense? How can they not lead to folks with the new badge being subject to heightened attention? And, if these flagged subscribers are also creators, how can this attention not lead to anything more than simply increasing the churn of existing subscriber money within Substack’s constrained middle-man system, rather than increasing the volume of patronised remuneration?
For that you’ll either need to pull in more punters with disposable dollars, or the poorer part of Substack to ‘stump up to keep up’ – driven by a powerful emotional cocktail of shame, naivety or fomo-induced desperation.
It’s easy to envisage the potential result from this: a VC-bootstrapped ‘community’ platform enclosed in paywall fencing and scented with self-effacing writerly privilege. The gatekeepers will then push the newsletters of poorer publishers out of their free content stores, along shiny-floored Notes corridors, before being ejected out of the smug Substack mall. Turn right for Medium Avenue, left for Wordpress Street, or be a ghost in a beehive, they’ll be instructed.
Not long afterwards, the itinerant, free-loading subbers who stanned, fanned and promo’d their writing will follow them, clutching their overburdened bank cards and debt collection notices. Except, of course, those who’ve bitten from that cut-up apple. They’ll never escape.
It will be just like the real world. Same as it ever was.
Until next time…
Given the increasingly obscene, or is that obscenely increasing, levels of poverty in the developed world I would agree that this glorification of 'people who actually have enough disposable income to take out paid subscriptions' is, well, yeah it's obscene. But I guess it's intended to be.
With the rise of AI and suchlike this increased poverty will be hitting the so-called middle classes more than others (me, for example). Sounds like Thatcher's wet dream (seeing as she started this - and fuck the children who get affected by it, obviously).
It will all lead to mediocrity likewise. Doesn't matter how good what you are creating is. What matters is paid subscribers! Paid subscribers, baby! I haven't got any!
Ultimately, then, it will lead to the artist as a self-justifying entity, not justified by others. Or solipsism, some might say. A Frenchman might cite Camus perhaps. But onanism only goes so far. Then comes the nonchalant post-coital smoke. Rising like an uncoiling serpent from the ashes of spent desire. C'est l'absurde.
Human beings have a spectrum of needs. It's why I despise Buddhists. They don't recognise the equal importance of basic physical needs. So very fucking middle class entitled, Buddhists. Have you noticed? Try being poor and indulging in self-effacement, you fucker. Personally, I want more life.
Still, the star that burns twice as bright, eh.