#16. GoFundMeNotYou
February 7, 2022
Platform Wars 2.0
Platforms have it tough. The OG platforms, Twitter & Facebook, have been under consistent and heavy scrutiny from the federal government, news outlets, and consumers. All centered around their power and whether it’s warranted. Well, if you were bored of that whole Twitter Facebook beef, fear not. We have a new wave of platforms that are now under heavy scrutiny. Enter Substack, Spotify, and GoFundMe. In the last 2 weeks, each of these platforms have planted stakes in the ground as to where they stand regarding their purpose and the power of a platform.
Substack: On one end, we have Substack, the newsletter platform that provides publishing, payment, and analytics infrastructure to support newsletters like this one. As censorship becomes a more regular cry from everybody arguing their “enemies” should not have a voice, Substack proactively published one of the strongest defenses of free speech we’ve seen by a tech company in this A+ essay. Their VP of Comms has since consistently reinforced that perspective:
GoFundMe: On the other end, we have GoFundMe, a usually globally loved platform that helps individuals and organizations crowdfund for and donate to good causes like medical bills or genuinely unlucky circumstances. Today, though, it’s GoFundMe v. Canadian truckers. Canadian truckers recently planned a “Freedom Convoy” in protest to COVID restrictions PM Trudeau placed on truckers coming from the US into Canada. What started as a loose coalition has grew into an international sensation as this particular protest directly affects the critical supply chains of both countries, with truckers holding a significant amount of power.
In support of the truckers, a GoFundMe page raised a whopping $10m CAN (~$7.9m USD). At which point, GoFundMe decided to enter the realm of platform wars and made the unusual decision of saying:
After releasing the initial $1m to the fundraising organization, GoFundMe blocked the remaining funds and removed the fundraising page from their platform. They then announced they would allow donors to “submit a request for a refund” within one week, and whatever of the $9m that wasn’t refunded would be redirected to causes they deemed worthy. Oops. They’ve since backtracked on that ill-fated decision, though not to let the money go through as donors intended, but to instead automatically refund all donors.
Spotify: now somewhere in the middle we have Spotify, popular music and podcast streaming service. Spotify has come under fire for Joe Rogan’s podcast. Spotify’s lunge to platform status happened when a coalition of teachers, scientists, and clinicians wrote an open letter urging the company to remove Joe Rogan from its platform for spreading what they deemed false information regarding COVID. That letter stayed relatively quiet as CEO Daniel Ek planned a response, until artist Neil Young gave Spotify an ultimatum. Either take down Joe Rogan’s podcast or take down Neil Young’s music. Spotify gave Joe Rogan a deal worth $100 million just 18 months ago, so we knew what the outcome for poor Neil would be. Ek reportedly unsuccessfully tried to meet with Young several times before making the predictable decision to remove Neil Young’s library from Spotify. Slowly, other artists joined the call while a growing pro-Rogan crowd emerged waving the banner of free speech. Pro-Roganites are encouraging the podcaster to continue interviewing guests who may disagree with public discourse precisely because disagreeing with public discourse is the only way to maintain active discussion. While Spotify hasn’t made any move toward taking Rogan off the air, and likely won’t, they have quietly removed over 70 of his episodes from the platform.
Nobody agrees on what constitutes as proper, safe exploratory, or “allowable” discourse regarding COVID. Shocker. More importantly however, even as politicians and news outlets politicize all of these platform discussions, is that there is not a clear left v. right stance.
Take just GoFundMe’s circumstance. Would they be appeasing the left or right? GoFundMe pages for medical bills have been highlighted by the left as a necessary stopgap for when our government doesn’t provide enough medical support. But they’re now exerting power against a union (not with a capital U), which the left typically supports? But also against truckers who typically vote right? The simple fact here is that it’s not simple. You can’t draw clear lines here as to who is left v. right although every news outlet has. The question is about the responsible use of power and that affects all parties and all people.
This also shouldn’t be treated as a do or die moment for anybody. This is how companies, particularly platform companies, rise and fall. They grow as content agnostic; a rising tide for an entire industry. They then aggregate significant power that goes largely unused. Until it doesn’t. And when a platform is that size, high stakes decisions will piss off a lot of people. Then new platforms spring up in their place and the cycle continues.
But if Substack, GoFundMe, and Spotify are platforms, what does that make OGs Twitter and Facebook? With the new three, you can’t go “viral” the same way you can on Twitter and Facebook, where that’s the whole point. Being “deplatformed” on Spotify doesn’t have the same impact. Joe Rogan would just keep producing his podcast elsewhere. Whereas Twitter can and has silenced a sitting American president. The primary difference is the availability of alternatives. Substack, GoFundMe, and Spotify aggregate content (or causes) that can largely be done elsewhere. They just make it easier. None of those three will ever sit in front of a Congress questioning whether they can unilaterally influence hundreds of millions of people. Twitter and Facebook have created an entirely new communication network. GoFundMe and Spotify, particularly, may soon be fighting for their lives with the general public. Twitter and Facebook have never really been threatened by the public.
So what should we learn from these new platform wars:
OGs Twitter and Facebook remain “unsolved” because they are nothing like the Substack, GoFundMe, Spotify. They’re not content aggregation platforms. They’re entirely different beasts.
The politics around these new platforms are not straightforward. It’s not a clear left v. right. It’s an apolitical exploration of individuals coming face-to-face with values we/they disagree with and how we/they respond to that disagreement.
The fate and decision of Substack, GoFundMe, or Spotify does not constitute an existential crisis for society. Everybody chill out.
Newsletters, charity, and music have not been closed off to upstart companies looking to challenge new incumbents. There remain very real avenues for start-ups to take on these new incumbents as the new incumbents themselves once did. And that’s, of course, what we want.
