5 Rules and 3 Ways to Break Them
5 Rules and 3 Ways to Break Them
It's tempting to believe that micro-business owners and independent workers are playing a different game than our tech overlords. (We're not.)
Big companies and billionaire shareholders write the rules of the 21st-century economy. Yet many small business owners and independent workers find themselves playing the same game—just on a different board.
Here are five rules we’re playing by and three ways to break them.
Rule #1: Growth at all costs
“Growth” in this case is not necessarily about being
“bigger” or “better,” it is simply “more.”
— Ed Zitron
Tech companies have gotten quite good at making their products worse to make more money. The rest of us not only have to deal with those bad products, but the same logic influences us.
This trend is what Ed Zitron describes as "the rot economy." And it’s a cousin of the process Cory Doctorow calls “enshittification.” This system works because we decided companies weren’t vehicles for making quality products a few decades ago. Instead, companies themselves were the products—bought and sold on the stock market.
Incidentally, "we" also decided that corporations were people...
Since companies were now the products bought and sold by the people who really count, companies made decisions based on what pleased those customers. Stock market customers made it clear that they wanted growth—the more, the better.
The point for these tech companies ceased to be true innovation, creativity, or even the vaunted disruption long ago. They're uninterested in quality because quality no longer correlates to growth—the only objective that pays.
Rule #2: Cash out when you can
Growth today doesn't come from bringing new products to market or offering solutions customers love. No, this growth is just another putrid form of profiteering—ill-gotten gains that serve the few at the expense of the many. This growth doesn't lead to more jobs, better wages, or a higher standard of living—it only pads the numbers.
Hey, that's what the shareholders want, right? Layoffs that lead to rising stock prices. Executive compensation that rewards short-termism. Acquisitions that quash competition.
Tech companies claim to exist to make our lives better, easier, more social. Maybe that was true at one time. Though, I'm dubious. But when did Meta, Google, Microsoft, or Amazon last make a product decision that felt like a net gain?1
That platforms have gotten worse—less social, less usable, less capable of fulfilling their core value propositions—isn't news to anyone.
My interest today is in considering how our gigs, our micro companies, and our creative outputs are influenced by the noxious odor emanating from these gangrenous limbs of capitalism.
Because they are. Our content, our products, our services, and the contracted projects we agree to are all, in one way or another, playing by the rules of the rot economy.
Companies are incentivized to game the system instead of creating real value.
So are we.
Rule #3: Do it for the Likes
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about why self-promotion (defined in a specific way) doesn't work.
That piece, which also contained a significant revision of a piece that was several years old, is now my most popular post since moving to Substack. The accompanying post I made on Instagram is my most-liked post there in a few years.
The success of that piece made me question some things. Should I be writing about social media more? Or maybe marketing more? Should I respond more to things in the news? Should I piggyback off The Discourse more? Perhaps I should try coining my own terms replete with my favorite curse words?
Paying attention to "what works" helps us learn our way to a sustainable business or career. Listening to what people resonate with is critical to producing products and services with real value.
Unfortunately, "what works" is also governed by the logic of the rot economy.2 And listening to feedback on enshittified platforms is hardly a safe bet. Anything I learn from data supplied by this system has to be filtered thoroughly if I hope to escape the same forces that make most of us want to spend less time online.
So, one more question: Is adjusting my gameplay based on a hit article or viral idea ever a good career or business move?
All my questions reflect the rules of the rot economy: if it's growth, it's got to be good! Smash that subscribe button! Like this post if you agree!
Rule #4: You've got to play to win
Much like the “tax disguised as a game,” so-called influence is a process of attracting attention, collectivizing it, capitalizing it through sponsorships,
and then (perhaps) crossing over to other ventures.
—
Even the very idea of "monetization" is rotten. Almost 12 years ago, I wrote a blog post about what monetization gets wrong about value creation. I talked about monetization as "rent-seeking," in that monetization typically means finding a way to get paid based on the (content or influence) capital you own rather than the value you produce. I also discussed rent-seeking here.
In that now-ancient post, I reflected on how what most small business owners and independent workers seem to want is in direct conflict with monetization strategies. They don't want to get paid for their content (though I do!) or their influence. They want to make products or offer services that matter to the right people.
And they want to find simple ways to connect what they make to those who want it.
Platform companies do not care about this. That's not why they exist. They exist to game the system.
How much of my (or your) creative (labor) output must be devoted to playing the game? What's the ratio I need to survive? If I play the game (again), is there a way to salvage some of my time and protect some of my energy so I can make something valuable?
The questions that popped into my brain after my post got so much traction are inspired, if I'm honest, more by the impulse to game the system than by the drive to create real value. It's the same drive that leads people who start businesses doing one thing to end up making money by teaching other people how to start businesses. It's why so many people go from being a life coach client to a life coach themselves.
Rule #5: Drill, baby, drill
Even if writing more about making the most of social media's rapid decomposition would be valuable to you (and it could very well be), does that work serve a greater purpose? Does it commit my resources to what you'll need beyond this quarter, this year, or this business cycle? Does it lead to a sustainable model for my struggling little media business? Does it lead to a better overall product in the long run?
The rot economy's rules always lead to extracting whatever gains can be extracted—especially if those gains have no real connection to value. Because value is expensive. Because value takes commitment. Because lasting value requires a timeframe that extends beyond the quarterly report.
Economic activity is the commitment of existing resources to future expectations. It is a commitment, therefore, to risk and uncertainty in respect to obsolescence of products, processes, and equipment; in respect to changes in markets, distributive channels, and consumer values; and in respect to changes in economy, technology, and society.
— Peter Drucker, "The Delusions of Profit"
Investing in value creation, committing to an idea that might not work, and thinking beyond the next rent payment are not luxuries every small business owner or independent worker can afford. I don't blame anyone (including myself) who decides to play by the rules of the rot economy or the pressures of enshittification.
It's been over two years now since I stepped away from the company I'd been building for more than a decade. It's been over two years since I could reliably pay myself as a result of my own work (podcast production notwithstanding)—the logic of the rot economy and the pressures of enshittification loom large for me.
I am keenly aware that I need to strike a balance. It's past time to create, offer, or be something that's legible within the rot economy (while, hopefully, still defying its logic).
3 Ways to Break the Rules
As I think about my next steps, here are three ways I'm breaking the rules:
Defying short-termism by maintaining strategic direction.
Remembering that "cheap" isn't a business model.
Getting off the platform.
Defying short-termism by maintaining strategic direction
Strategy connects tactics to vision. It's a path between Point A and Point B. Without it, tactics and vision have no substance, no meaning—what Nilofer Merchant calls an "air sandwich."
Today, my vision is personal. In two years, we plan to move to northwestern Montana and live quiet, creative lives surrounded by tamaracks.
There are all sorts of things I could do to make money. But I must always ask myself if those things make it easier or harder to get to Montana. Are they making it easier or harder to live that quiet, creative life amid the tamaracks?
Remembering that "cheap" isn't a business model
I've been pleasantly surprised by my first ten months in the reader-funded media business. But I'm keenly aware that it takes a helluva lot of $7 per month subscriptions to make a living. My newsletter now nets about $1000 per month (more when there's a spike in annual subscriptions).
Part of the rot economy logic is that scale can solve all problems. It's the classic 1000 true fans notion. But do you know how hard it is to find 1000 true fans willing to pay for what you do? It's really freaking hard!
I want scale to work. Desperately. But I know that cheap isn't a business model. It's far easier (and less stressful) to create a business model oriented to 10 or 20 customers than 1000.
Getting off the platform
This means something other than what might seem obvious. I don't mean quitting social media.
Instead, I must remember that the best feedback doesn't come via platforms. The number of likes, recommendations, shares, or comments something gets is trash data. The rules of the rot economy govern the who, what, why, and how of commenting and sharing, too.
The best feedback comes from listening to people away from these diseased habitats. If I want to know what's resonating or what people really need, I have to find ways to get that information away from these rotten incentives.
The End
I guess the bottom line in all this is that social media isn't real life. And platform companies aren't real businesses. If we let the logic of the rot economy infest what we make or how we work, we'll end up without a real future.
Your instinct to find more fertile ground, to nurture a healthier system, is a good one. That's real. And you (and I) can really do it.
I excluded Apple only because of the iOS update from a few years back that made it easy to block tracking!
That is, colloquially. Not this particular newsletter called What Works.
Thank you!! Thankful for your research and encouragement to challenge the system. Challenge accepted 🥳