Sad but true. What is so trippy to me is how the platforms exude vibrancy and potential while simultaneously being sort of prisons, schemes, or Hotels California, with rules and structures you can’t really see. I keep wondering how to liberate the vibrancy, but I think that free alternatives actually won’t work until we have a real active workers’ movement for freedom, and then the platforms will be reappropriated, so there won’t be a need to build new ones.
If there be money to be made on any platform, 20% of the content makers will garner 80% of the profits. The other 80% of content makers will fight for the remaining 20% of profits. Eventually, substack will become the next meta...a complete waste of time and effort.
If I write a book and Seymour Hersrh writes a book on the same subject......he'd get book reviews and sales....and I might not....he has a following....I don't.....he's got decades of reporting in different countries....I don't....of course He gets more subscribers faster.
Of course People with fans and names recognition like Ralph Nadar or Michael Moore or Patti Smith or Erin Brakovich will probably get paid subscriptions faster than John Smith #6,001 ......? Is that fair?
I have not yet signed up for Stripe....but I hope to make money....but who the hell knows who the hell I am?
So buyers choose.....a bookstore may have 3,000 novels in stock.....but buyers/reviewers/bookstores/publishers will have top 10 best sellers....a few will have movies made.....most authors will make little...is that fair?
Before I signed up for Substack I established an artwork print on demand website to try to sell some of my art....but no one has heard of me and I only have 100 images available. But it's up to me to get people to find me and buy my art......there's a lot of artists making a lot of good money.....and many making little or nothing.....people Google Andy Warhol or Ann Geddes or Banksy......not many people search "Mr Dodo B Bird Artwork Pixels" and then click on a painting or photo...yet.....even with my monarch butterfly art and campaign I'm waiting to be found....
ALGORITHMS...where you have me most curious....who gets pushed?....who disappears? I've heard the word "throttled" and I wonder....how could I possibly succeed if I said something and got a shadow ban or "throttled" so no one sees me....and I get no paid subscriptions or "buy me a coffee"...
I never joined Facebook or Twitter X or Instagram etc and the Notes on Substack is the first ALGORITHM I've been exposed to.....I was around before personal computers and by temperament and income I was a Luddite and until a vicious hate crime on July 6 2023 I was outside playing in the yard and gardens with the border collies....So I don't understand how all this works.....you may be completely right about ALGORITHMs being unfair....
But if I post 25 poems and 100 other people do too ......people who pay to subscribe or buy a book......they will pick who they want to pay or not....I always think if 10% like some of my stuff and 1% of art and poetry and journalism and comments.....and paid me I'd be making more money than I ever have.
Not to put you on the spot but I went to see if I could see how many subscribers you have......
If you have 97,632 subscribers.....because people and the ALGORITHM love you ....and I have less than 30.....well.....I'm sure you've been doing it longer.....and if people like you enough to pay you....but not me.....is that fair?
Previously I wanted to die in obscurity in my gardens... now I want to make a living with paid subscriptions...books ....and art sales......it would be easier to get started if not constantly stressed and Sleepless and almost homeless....?
Now.....I hope that the ALGORITHM likes me and people find and buy my art and financially support my writing and photographic projects.
Sad but true. What is so trippy to me is how the platforms exude vibrancy and potential while simultaneously being sort of prisons, schemes, or Hotels California, with rules and structures you can’t really see. I keep wondering how to liberate the vibrancy, but I think that free alternatives actually won’t work until we have a real active workers’ movement for freedom, and then the platforms will be reappropriated, so there won’t be a need to build new ones.
I've come to a similar conclusion. The internet is captured and dead, until it's not.
I hope Substack makes enough money to pay its bills. So I can keep reading.
Being able to make a living as a writer has always been an occupation for the few.
Good luck.
👇🏼 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75560036-technofeudalism
If there be money to be made on any platform, 20% of the content makers will garner 80% of the profits. The other 80% of content makers will fight for the remaining 20% of profits. Eventually, substack will become the next meta...a complete waste of time and effort.
Monopoly Capital from the 1960s outlines the problems with the Internet.
If I write a book and Seymour Hersrh writes a book on the same subject......he'd get book reviews and sales....and I might not....he has a following....I don't.....he's got decades of reporting in different countries....I don't....of course He gets more subscribers faster.
Of course People with fans and names recognition like Ralph Nadar or Michael Moore or Patti Smith or Erin Brakovich will probably get paid subscriptions faster than John Smith #6,001 ......? Is that fair?
I have not yet signed up for Stripe....but I hope to make money....but who the hell knows who the hell I am?
So buyers choose.....a bookstore may have 3,000 novels in stock.....but buyers/reviewers/bookstores/publishers will have top 10 best sellers....a few will have movies made.....most authors will make little...is that fair?
Before I signed up for Substack I established an artwork print on demand website to try to sell some of my art....but no one has heard of me and I only have 100 images available. But it's up to me to get people to find me and buy my art......there's a lot of artists making a lot of good money.....and many making little or nothing.....people Google Andy Warhol or Ann Geddes or Banksy......not many people search "Mr Dodo B Bird Artwork Pixels" and then click on a painting or photo...yet.....even with my monarch butterfly art and campaign I'm waiting to be found....
ALGORITHMS...where you have me most curious....who gets pushed?....who disappears? I've heard the word "throttled" and I wonder....how could I possibly succeed if I said something and got a shadow ban or "throttled" so no one sees me....and I get no paid subscriptions or "buy me a coffee"...
I never joined Facebook or Twitter X or Instagram etc and the Notes on Substack is the first ALGORITHM I've been exposed to.....I was around before personal computers and by temperament and income I was a Luddite and until a vicious hate crime on July 6 2023 I was outside playing in the yard and gardens with the border collies....So I don't understand how all this works.....you may be completely right about ALGORITHMs being unfair....
But if I post 25 poems and 100 other people do too ......people who pay to subscribe or buy a book......they will pick who they want to pay or not....I always think if 10% like some of my stuff and 1% of art and poetry and journalism and comments.....and paid me I'd be making more money than I ever have.
Not to put you on the spot but I went to see if I could see how many subscribers you have......
If you have 97,632 subscribers.....because people and the ALGORITHM love you ....and I have less than 30.....well.....I'm sure you've been doing it longer.....and if people like you enough to pay you....but not me.....is that fair?
Previously I wanted to die in obscurity in my gardens... now I want to make a living with paid subscriptions...books ....and art sales......it would be easier to get started if not constantly stressed and Sleepless and almost homeless....?
Now.....I hope that the ALGORITHM likes me and people find and buy my art and financially support my writing and photographic projects.
American Dissident Artist Mr Dodo B Bird.
Dodobbird.pixels.com
To see some of my art click on the link to my pixels art display and sales website.