This week, the anger and frustration around the news cycle has really been ratcheted up, for obvious reasons.
Publishing a newsletter about Tedium is not always a good choice in that environment, because the odds are high it’s just going to come off as rage and anger on the page.
I have been trying a new tactic lately: If something really bothers me, I take a beat before writing about it, to ensure those feelings are not written in the throes of passion, but that I feel I can defend them after the fact.
So I took a beat. And honestly, the situation with The Washington Post and presidential endorsements still bothers me for one important reason: It is ultimately a proxy battle that punishes journalists who ultimately did nothing wrong.
I get why people are upset with the lack of endorsement. Jeff Bezos plays an outsize role in the lives of the average person, with his business responsible for consumer goods, technology, entertainment, even healthcare in some cases. The fact that he’s punting on getting involved in a pivotal political discussion, and doing so suddenly, feels like he misunderstood the mandate he gave himself by buying The Washington Post over a decade ago.
If you find weird or unusual topics like this super-fascinating, the best way to tell us is to give us a nod on Ko-Fi. It helps ensure that we can keep this machine moving, support outside writers, and bring on the tools to support our writing. (Also it’s heartening when someone chips in.)
We accept advertising, too! Check out this page to learn more.
But consumers have blunt weapons for registering their displeasure. They can stop spending money on the product the person sells. And they can complain about it on the internet, or if they feel like going outside, with a protest. That’s it. But the problem is, when you’re dealing with someone with the financial heft of a Jeff Bezos, there is going to be collateral damage everywhere if you push back. Just as an example: If people stop shopping at Amazon, that hurts downstream creators and manufacturers who work independently, whose income might depend on either selling products on Amazon or on the affiliate revenue they get from promoting their products.
That is the hard part of being upset at someone with a lot of power. The collateral damage is deep, and the relationships are complex. As public cloud providers go, Amazon Web Services has a market share of 50.1%, according to a recent analysis from HG Insights; that means that there are companies, large and small, that rely on Amazon at a deeper level than occasionally buying paperbacks. And, depending on your scale, switching to something else when you’ve committed to AWS is nontrivial.
The old Post building, which the paper left in 2015. Byzantine and kind of old-school, it had its charms. (Richard Roche/Flickr)
In the case of the Post, the collateral damage is the journalism. And, yes, the journalists. (Before I go any further, some quick disclosure: I worked for Express, a now-shuttered subsidiary of the Post, in the days before Bezos. I left about a year before the rich guy bought the company. I’m sure that colors my view of this situation.)
I want to clear up a misconception I’ve seen at times: “Oh, you can just quit and get another job.” Have you tried that? To be clear, there are big names at the paper, folks who have a degree of notoriety. But there are lots of other people who simply have unglamorous jobs with little outward visibility—but without them, the bearings of the paper would fall apart. D.C. is not lacking for journalism gigs, but often, people who reach the high levels of a Washington Post-style often gig stay, because, at some point, the stability matters more.
Blaming people for working for a large company feels like it focuses on the wrong problem. Yet, it’s an argument I’ve heard more and more lately. Not everyone is in startup mode 24/7. Folks have other obligations that make it so that they can’t just up and quit their job suddenly, because the online mob told them to.
When you have a mortgage or kids, your calculus is different, and if you are a journalist, the most stable place to be is at a large media outlet with a stable owner. The problem is less with their choice to work somewhere stable—it’s more the ease with which stability collapses.
I feel like so many of the debates we’ve been having this year center around people with a lot of power not appreciating the power they have. Apple pushing around Patreon, and by extension, Patreon’s network of creators. Mullenweg going whole-hog on WordPress and screwing over both his ecosystem and end users that feel forced to care about his actions because of how disruptive they are. Now we have a version of this debate so deeply tied to news and politics that at least some part of the outcry comes down to fear that it could tip an election.
As the great crypto skeptic Molly White, a fellow newsletter self-hoster, wrote on her site earlier this week, independence is such a complicated bag of beans. One bit of external BS, whether a frivolous legal claim or an unexpected hike in your costs, can topple the whole thing.
To me, if you want to solve the problem of the unchecked company or billionaire that can disrupt an ecosystem overnight, you create pathways to simplify the process.
Example: Filing for an LLC is a total pain, and if you sign up with the wrong LLC provider, you could be on the hook for hundreds of dollars in additional charges. I made this mistake when I filed for an LLC a while back, and the situation taught me a lot about how exploitation even affects people at the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. (The best advice I can offer on your LLC journey: Sign up for the provider with the ugly site.)
And at a broader structural level, other things could be done: For example, laws should be passed allowing freelancers to join traditional unions. Additionally, more economic incentives should exist to make it easier to start a business, so you’re not stuck applying to hundreds of jobs on LinkedIn for six months and getting rejected by a bot.
This, except it’s the life and career of someone you’ve never met. (via xkcd)
So I guess what I’m getting at here is this: Protest Bezos, or whomever else, in the best way you know possible. But understand that the entire economy is like this famous xkcd comic, and you have to accept that you are going to topple over somebody’s weak link. And have empathy around that. It feels like in the collective frustration around this moment, that empathy has been lost.
Then, when you’re done protesting, let’s do the hard work of actually trying to build better economic incentives for alternatives, on more stable ground.
(And to Bezos: You’re overdue to organize the Post as a nonprofit, so something like this can never happen again. Philly is not that far away from D.C. Ask the folks at the Inquirer how they did it.)
Non-Political Links
This week’s set of Apple releases has been overall pretty good. I think the Mac Mini is probably the best deal, but please, before you buy one, do yourself a favor and research the mini PC market. It is far more popular and diverse than John Ternus gave it credit for in his presentation.
Speaking of the Mac, I must call out this mod for the Apple Silicon MacBooks that makes SSDs user replaceable. It is a nontrivial fix and unlikely to go mainstream, but it could keep your favorite laptop alive for a few years longer.
If you think “Wolf Like Me” is one of the best songs of the 2000s like I do, you’re going to love the single from Tunde Adebimpe’s first solo record. No, we’re not getting a new TV On The Radio album at this time, but this is the next best thing.
--
Find this one an interesting read? Share it with a pal! And I’m fighting off a bit of a head cold, but I hope to be back at it in a day or two.
