If it quacks like a media company...

...it is a media company

This is a media company.

Recently Substack sent out an email featuring promotional videos about some Substack creators. I watched Charlotte Clymer’s 4 ads and they’re each quite thoughtful and lovely, which is unsurprising if you follow her, of course.

But I want to bring up something else. I want to ask what is a media company? And what are its responsibilities?

Since the dawn of the social web, companies like Facebook, as the biggest example, and Twitter as the most depressing example, have sworn they are not media companies. They are, instead, public (and private) squares. Or at least that’s the latest positioning they’re going with. (IMO one reason Facebook has always outpaced Twitter when it came to usage and ubiquity is that Facebook always knew much more clearly what it was to people. Twitter went through a variety of concepts of what it wanted to be in the world.)

So these companies swore they were not media companies. This despite making money like a media company (i.e. advertising) and making decisions like a media company (in their case deploying algorithms to push some content forward and push other content back.) At more traditional forms of media this hierarchy of content presentation is usually a human function called editing.

The fact was that even though these companies never wanted to be identified as a media company (and it’s nice to want things), they always were media companies.

Substack has trod this well-worn path, and perhaps had more right to the non-media claim. They were more akin to Blogger or SixApart or Wordpress or GoDaddy for that matter….platform or hosting services. Creators used the platform, and other people paid per individual creator for access. A micro-membership model, more than a media model. Maybe. Except Substack makes money not from creators willing to pay for the platform or service. They only make money when people pay to subscribe to creators. The incentive is to platform people who can build an audience that will pay.

Now each of the platform/hosting companies can choose and have sometimes chosen to not serve as host for certain kinds of content…adult content springs to mind. Companies have a choice, because they are NOT, in fact, the government. This is not a first amendment issue. Not for Twitter, not for Substack.

But Substack has been making media company moves for a while now. Relatively early on they chose a select group of creators to fund. They have sent out emails featuring different content to non-subscribers to that content. (Hence belying the claim that you don’t have to see content you object to; you see only what you subscribe to.) And now they’re creating promotional content for, again, a select groups of creators. I don’t know what combination of algorithm and human curation is at work, but it is at work.

Of course I can unsubscribe from any Substack company email. I can ignore the interstitial leaderboard style content stacks inserted into my home feed. I can work really hard to avoid any of their media company moves.

Or we (and they) could just accept they’re also a media company. And that means we need to accept his:

In a market landscape where media companies (traditional and new) have a tougher and tougher time making money, just about every media company is guilty of monetizing hate.

Maybe they allow unmoderated hate in their comment sections while they sell impression-based ads against every refresh and click to more comments.

Maybe they give in to the fact that fear and dread and outrage and uncertainty drives people to tune in more than calm, no-drama, business-as-usual content, so they normalize and equalize their way to coverage that feels (small m) meta, not instructive or useful. And call themselves 24-hour news channels while serving up 90% opinion.

Maybe they insist they’re free speech absolutists so as not to have to give up financial incentives tied to controversy and conspiracy.

If I knew how to fix the broken media model I wouldn’t have left the media vertical. So, sadly, I’m one of those people pointing out a problem without a solution at the ready. (But BTW, asking for that is just a way of trying to shut people up…don’t be that person who says “don’t bring me a problem unless you have a proposed solution” because I guarantee you problems will fester if you do that.)

For a while now my advice (which I follow personally) is to be very mindful of the media I consume…as mindful as I am about the media I create. Here’s how I do it:

• Disengage from media narratives, don’t even hate-share them. What we repeat, even in scorn, we reinforce

• Find original sources without added commentary when you can. (I watched the convention on CSPAN for example; it was lovely)

• Prioritize human curation over algorithms: Have your go-to-resources…and follow the bread crumbs. (We used to call how we found new bloggers “following the bread crumbs.” You find and trust one voice; see who they admire and cite and refer to and go follow them, and so on and so on. )

• Prioritizing your mental health and stress level is OK. I don’t plan to watch tonight’s interview with Harris-Walz live, for example. It won’t change whether I vote, or how I vote, and I know I will feel on tenterhooks the entire time, so PASS. I’m sure there will be no shortage of clips and commentary from people I like to keep me informed on how it went. I remove myself from things I know will cause me to yell at the TV.

Those are some examples of how I handle media. And in my opinion, Substack is 100% media.

Do you think of it that way? Would it make you treat it differently if you did? Do you create your own restrictions around your media consumption? Let me know.

What else is going on?

Optionality

If you manage a community, your members will tell you what your benefits really are. Today’s example: We do a monthly office hours for Premium members over on Optionality, and September’s office hours will include a member sharing a new approach she has figured out for having more effective cold email outreach. I actually saw her mention it briefly on LinkedIn and I reached out and said, “Hey, do you want to share that with fellow members? Because that sounds like news we can all use.”

She agreed and added that she really appreciated the opportunity to workshop how to share this info in a private space before releasing it into the wild. She can test out her approach and get feedback from a crew she knows is smart and experienced and friendly…a crew that wants her to succeed! We hadn’t thought to offer this kind of idea-workshopping opportunity widely to members, but you can bet we are now!

So: Your final reminder: Upgrade now before discount ends.

The end to early adopter Premium Membership pricing has now been set for midnight Monday September 2nd, so if you’ve been considering upgrading or subscribing to premium membership, now’s the time to get it for $299/year.

That’s it for today. Until next time, please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on any or all of the above. This is basically my blog now! And as always, I appreciate a share of Optionality and this newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

-E