I'm going to begin this report — have y'all noticed that I do one of these each month? — by giving you a long quotation from a post by Anil Dash:
The open web is something extraordinary: anybody can use whatever tools they have, to create content following publicly documented specifications, published using completely free and open platforms, and then share that work with anyone, anywhere in the world, without asking for permission from anyone. Think about how radical that is.
Now, from content to code, communities to culture, we can see example after example of that open web under attack. Every single aspect of the radical architecture I just described is threatened, by those who have profited most from that exact system.
Today, the good people who act as thoughtful stewards of the web infrastructure are still showing the same generosity of spirit that has created opportunity for billions of people and connected society in ways too vast to count while — not incidentally — also creating trillions of dollars of value and countless jobs around the world. But the increasingly-extremist tycoons of Big Tech have decided that that's not good enough.
Now, the hectobillionaires have begun their final assault on the last, best parts of what's still open, and likely won't rest until they've either brought all of the independent and noncommercial parts of the Internet under their control, or destroyed them.
There’s a lot of bad news in that post, but I recommend the whole thing.
I’ve written a good deal over the years about my love for and commitment to the open web, so I won’t re-hash all that here. I’ll just make two points. The first is that my affection for the open web has grown more passionate as I have become more interested in anarchism, that is, in bottom-up collaborative social practices, negotiated among equals — Acts 2 kinda stuff, for those who are into the whole Bible thing. Like Anil Dash, I think the open web is a miracle of unstructured collaboration; it’s a treasure we should work desperately to preserve.
The second point is a more uncomfortable one. Look: I really hate Substack. I especially loathe the way it has turned itself into a social network that essentially replicates the web within a paywalled platform. (Have you noticed that Substackers almost always just “restack” other writers on the platform and rarely show any awareness of what’s being published outside their Sub-walls? The platform’s architecture really promotes that, to the degree that I wonder if, like Elon’s X, they shadowban outbound links.) In short: Hate hate hate.
And yet …
… I have never quite brought myself to the point of saying I will never move to Substack. The reason? Because I know I could make a lot more money on Substack than I make by using Buy Me a Coffee. Indeed, people remind me of this! My friend Freddie deBoer wrote to me recently to say that a post of mine would have done gangbusters on Substack — which would have meant a lot of people impulse-buying subscriptions. That’s the thing about being in that platform ecosystem: thanks to network effects, you get the impulse buyers. That does not happen on Buy Me a Coffee. You all have had to be really intentional about supporting me, which is a great thing.
Why is it a great thing? Because by writing on the open web and merely asking for support, I have wholly escaped the pressures that come when people have paid money to see your writing and therefore have certain expectations for what you say and how you say it. Also escaped: that other kind of pressure that comes when people really like one particular post and show their liking with money — which plants the idea in the back of your head that you need to write more posts like that … whether you really want to or not. By contrast, y’all have supported me because you see what the whole package is, and know what you’re getting and are likely to continue to get. That’s really wonderful. So I have every reason to keep writing for the open web and merely requesting/hoping for your contributions.
Well, every reason but one, anyway. Why haven’t I forsworn Substack? Simple: I’m afraid that when I retire next year and take a big financial hit, I’ll be poor, or significantly poorer anyway, unless I hawk my wares on that platform. Which is pathetic. That attitude is unworthy of a mature Christian man.
So — taking a deep breath here — I solemnly affirm before God and my fellow humans that I will never write on Substack. There, I said it. If no one supports my writing I’ll work as a greeter at Walmart — but as for my personal online writing, I pledge my troth to the open web! You heard it here first.
A few things in closing:
My biography of Dorothy L. Sayers will start shipping in late November. It doesn’t have an Amazon page yet; don’t know why not. I'll update my home page when it does.
Cosmos Malick will resume no later that the first of August. July will be a busy month: I just got back from a retreat at Laity Lodge — thus the photo above — and will be returning next week to lead a retreat along with a motley troupe of actors; after that I have a series of articles to write for The Dispatch. But I haven’t forgotten the Cosmos. When I do return it will be with the articulation of a plan … or rather an anti-plan.
Once more: Thanks for all the support and kindness!