Pathetic
Nice is a spectrum disorder
Here we go again, yet another post I don’t really want to write, but to be true to myself, I must.
A few weeks ago, I had the following exchange in the comments of this post,
interviewing about the latter’s recent journey to Substack.pathetic….
Can you be more clear explicit honest about what or who or why you’re posting your twitter-like dismissive epithet or opinion “pathetic”?
although a better question is why should anyone who respects Chris Best and what his co-founders have created/are creating at Substack care about your “pathetic” opinion?
And the same with regard to @jimacosta?
And if your “pathetic” opinion is to the other humans’ comments, that’s just rude (or Twitter-Rude) which is my opinion
You are actually right, I deserve the scorn. I hardly ever do it and I never should.
I was sitting a couple of minutes over that one word before I clicked ‘post’I don't want to badmouth or talk down on anybody, but I was overwhelmed by all the things I found 'pathetic' about the conversation and all its implication.
Jim Acosta and what he represents is bad news. Losers of the dying Mainstream media jumping onto Substack may be bad news.I should write a post about it and I will. Look for the post, I will title it "Pathetic".
The problem is that I do not want confrontations, I am not looking for a fight but I felt necessary to make the point that I do not like something. Would you wish I didn't? Do you really wish that this was an echo chamber?Thank you. I wasn’t ‘scorning’ you. I was sharing my opinion that sharing opinions, such as your “pathetic” opinion, without honestly owning that it is YOUR ‘opinion’, rather than expressing (or implying) it is ‘the truth’.
I don’t share your opinion that the conversation was “pathetic”. If you have constructive feedback for @Chris Best and how to help Substack do better, I’m sure he’d welcome it.
I hear your opinion/speculation/prediction:
Jim Acosta and what he represents is bad news. Losers of the dying Mainstream media jumping onto Substack may be bad news.I don’t have enough experience of Jim Acosta to think he, personally, is bad news, and I think (predict) the subscription model of Substack will ‘protect’ Substack from “losers of the dying Mainstream media." I’m so happy to be learning how to curate my ‘newsfeed’ here at Substack.
The conversation ended here, with my promise to return to it.
Before I Continue, I must state again, that I like Substack very much. For what it does, it is the best there is. It was and still is a great idea, but that is where the praise ends. The Best - Acosta conversation was a painful reminder of the things that are wrong with it. Pathetic is the word that sums it up best.
I did not watch it to the end when I made my comment, but I did before I sat down to write this. Finishing it did not improve my judgement.
I never liked Jim Acosta; I always found his attitude pathetic. No intelligence, no grace, no wisdom, no honesty, no seeking of truth. He is like an angry attack dog, a narrative manufacturing liar. But above all, he is a pathetic loser. The rat leaving the sinking ship of the corrupt, partisan mainstream media. And he had a major role in sinking the ship.
I also found the way these two, Chris Best and Jim Acosta, was blowing smoke up each other’s ass pathetic.
Sucking up to each other with the thinly veiled hope that it will help themselves more than the other guy. It is beyond pathetic, but one of them may be right. I am betting on Substack getting more publicity value out of it than Jim Acosta.
This is how the five reacted to his departure:
This is trump’s obituary (just in case you did not watch the five above):
… and this is the guy Substack is embracing as its future.
The embrace of Jim Acosta is a symptom of a slew of other problems that slowly showing up in Substack.
Jim Acosta does not matter. Substack thinking that he does, does.
According to Jim Acosta’s profile, he has 307,000 subscribers.
There is no way that this is organic. Not in three months. Most likely it is an imported mailing list. A lie, in a way. I doubt that he will increase the above number. His readership will, eventually, dwindle away.
Pathetic in several dimensions
There are two fundamental approaches to doing business. You can focus on the product or its marketing.
You may be familiar with the anecdote about Steve Jobs and market research. When he was asked why he doesn’t do any, his answer was that the consumers don’t know what they want until he shows it to them.
Elon Musk works with the same attitude. So did Henry Ford. They all ran (run) product focused companies. Even more importantly, both Ford and Musk understood that the real product is the factory that makes the product that is actually sold.
Hint to Substack: that’s the platform and its software.
Substack is a marketing company. Their foundational concept is a marketing idea, a way to sell a service. Substack’s product is the subscriber; the paying subscriber to be precise.
What I find somewhat pathetic, is the single-minded focus on marketing to the detriment of product development.
I must admit to a bias here: while I understand that they are necessary, I always had contempt for salesmen and marketers, while I have tremendous respect for creators, innovators and builders of things.
Substack is not that simple. It has several layers when it comes to defining what the product is.
The creators? The platform and its tools? The possible services that may be offered? The subscribers in general or the paying ones in particular? What to cultivate?
What should Substack consider its major competition and possible source of expansion? Where and how should Substack look for new paying subscribers?
Publishing platforms like, Wordpress, Youtube and Rumble?
Social media like Facebook and Twitter/X?
OR: should they try to expand into fields ripe for disruption, such as physical publishing and opinion research?
The only reason I am asking these questions is to explain the unease that led me to my one-word assessment: pathetic.
The disruptors I mentioned above all had a vision and a full understanding of the nature of their disruption. What I see at Substack is a bunch of marketers without a proper vision and a well reasoned plan. They just want to do what everybody else is doing and market it a little better.
Chris seems to like doing his interviews live, but I did not find them convenient to watch on-line or very engaging watching them later.
I was especially turned off by watching inarticulate bimbos like
and who cannot finish a sentence without some ‘like’s ‘I’m like’s and ‘you know’s peppered into them. The only thing that speaks for them is that they represent the narcissist ADHD generation Substack seems to be catering to. Going for that crowd is a pathetic path to take.Trying to turn Substack into a tabloid magazine is a pathetic plan.
What made Joe Rogan such a success is that he talks to everybody with honesty, integrity and a genuinely open mind. Going anywhere the conversation takes him. He is a fundamentally good person without ever trying to be nice.
Substack is full of people with gravitas. Why not talk to them? I can name several. From across the political spectrum left to right. Aiming for the non-controversial middle is pathetic.
Why would Chris and Hamish talk to the pathetic bimbos but not to
To , but not to or @shellenberger
To but not to of Barsoom?
To but none of her absolutely legitimate critics I named in my post.
To Any of the Covid warriors like or ?
(…on this subject, I could easily add another dozen)
How can you comfort Emily Oster while ignoring the victims of people like her?
(…dozens of people have their career destroyed and reputation ruined. Just this week, has been given a heavy jail sentence)
Why would you not talk to wonderful news aggregators like the ?
What made Joe Rogan such a success is that he talks to everybody with honesty, integrity and a genuinely open mind. Going anywhere the conversation takes him.
Everybody I have seen Chris or Hamish talking to is on the left or in the apolitical middle. Every one of their interviews and conversations is a ‘safe’ (and nice) one.
Every one of those conversations is promoting Substack as a safe-place for everyone, where all the different people with their different views can coexist in creative kumbaya. That is not a reflection of the real world but an escape from it.
Talking exclusively to lightweights, talking exclusively to one side is pathetic.
You cannot be everything to everybody all the time. Aiming for the middle is a prescription for failure. In one word: pathetic.
The disruptors I mentioned (Ford, Musk Jobs), are NOT nice people. They are unforgiving slave drivers demanding results. They know where they want to be and want to get there yesterday.
It seems to me that the Substack company ethos is being nice, not realizing that NICE is a spectrum disorder. Pathetic is just one stage of it.
If you are insulted or offended by anything I said here, please forgive me.
My aim was only to wake you up with my honest opinion.
All of this went through my head watching the Chris Best Jim Acosta conversation.
I felt frustration and indignation, all distilled down into my one-word comment.
This post isn’t much better as it only suggests but does not provide answers.
I still owe you that, as an answer to
’s post:A simple vision for the future of media organizations
In the meantime, here is a very short version:
Fix the product before adding any new feature to it,
Have a proper technical support department
Create a very specific vision and a roadmap to get to it,
Find a way to engage your users (even the grumpy ones like myself)
Stop being so good damned nice! Don’t be afraid to state where you stand.
So,
, did I answer your question?I am not really asking Chris or Hamish, I expect them to keep ignoring the questions that I am certainly not alone asking.
Your comments are, as always, welcome. And you don’t have to be nice. Just be good and reasonable.
More from here
This post is not the first expression of my frustration. Here are some more:
and of course:
More from Substack
Jim Acosta: CNN to Substack - by Chris Best and Jim Acosta
Talking about pathetic, I cannot help sharing this ‘book’ review:
I wrestle with my goodness just like Jean Valjean
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I think it’s just comes down to the numbers follow the left. All the people who denied this site for years as a right wing Nazi hell hole have decided the exposure is here because they failed on media that everybody all the time is exposed to.
Somehow they hit the ground running with numbers. Legacy attachments and institutional support still I guess.
But they are running the numbers for now.
so the Substack product team thinks it’s chasing numbers I suppose. Appealing to normies. It’s a big market. Far bigger atm than us “counter” normals.
But people like Taibbi absolutely put this thing in the map. If they hadn’t come here early and often it would be in the startup dumpster bin now.
I find such one-word dismissals perfectly in order. Jim Acosta is/was on CNN for ages and CNN itself doesn’t even deserve scorn anymore. Mild revulsion perhaps. Spending the thought necessary on Acosta to formulate even a one-word response is more than this person deserves. It’s like lifting up a rock, exposing the slithering invertebrates underneath, thinking „ah, Acostas“ and then putting the rock back down.