FREDDY DE BOER ON FEAR AND ENVY AT THE ATLANTIC: The New World Struggles to be Born, The Old World Struggles to Keep Padding Its Resume.

I found this little item in The Atlantic from a few weeks ago to be an amusing volley in an old war. It’s part of a long lineage of establishment publications working to guard whatever lingering sense of superiority they have left, from a writer named Kaitlyn Tiffany.

First, this appears to contains a flat factual inaccuracy: it’s simply historical incorrect to say that Substack “got its start by offering mainstream journalists lucrative profit-sharing arrangements.” Substack’s core financial arrangement is to host newsletters and handle payment integration, in return for which Substack takes a percentage of subscription revenues; this is only “profit-sharing” in the loosest and least-accurate sense. (Am I also “profit-sharing” with Stripe? Are grocery stores profit-sharing with Mastercard? Am I profit-sharing with the government when I pay income taxes?)

Well, The Atlantic.