Adam Curry is the modern-day Prometheus. His discovery of podcasting and sharing it with the world was as significant of a development as when Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give to humans. Podcasting has quickly evolved into one of the most popular ways to communicate valuable information, completely disintermediating the CIA-controlled media apparatus. While Bitcoin seeks to separate money and state, podcasting seeks to separate syndicated news organizations and information.
Giving the world podcasting was not enough for Curry as he is now once again seeking to wrestle control from the gods by allowing individuals to engage in what he coined the “value-for-value economy” by allowing podcasters to receive Lightning payments.
The fiat value-for-value economy is massive. There are tools like YouTube super chats, PayPal, Patreon, and more that allow content creators to receive immense amounts of value from their audience without having to rely solely on sponsors.
The Bitcoin value-for-value economy is much smaller, but in my opinion as a credentialed journalist, significantly more important. The first value-for-value use of bitcoin was when WikiLeaks was kicked off the fiat payment rails. Exposing war criminals is one of the core responsibilities of journalists, yet is an unapproved activity by the parasitic ruling class. One of my mottos is journalism dies in compliance, and building the entire media apparatus on top of systems that rely on permission to operate will completely kill any ability for any real information to be transmitted.
In recent months, through the revelations on USAID funding of media, the playbook for how the media apparatus is controlled has been laid bare for everyone to see. The systems for controlling and manipulating information are sophisticated and often aren’t apparent. For many media companies to get any notable funding, they have to bend the knee to the ruling class, sacrifice any dignity they have, and perform fellatio on individuals who probably had close ties to Jeffrey Epstein. This is why I left traditional media to form The Bugle, the world’s premier news agency.
There are many myths about the institution of journalism. Many believe that journalists are supposed to tell the truth, bring useful information to individuals, and expose wrongdoings. People who believe those myths likely have not interacted with many journalists. I would argue that the institution of journalism is more about engaging in covert propaganda, hidden behind the cover (myth) of having some moral high ground.
The majority of journalists are individuals who are mercenaries for whoever will pay them.
Following the trailblazing efforts of Adam Curry and Julian Assange, The Bugle has operated entirely off a value-for-value model, using bitcoin as the main funding mechanism. The product we are selling is our content. We do not operate as a marketing agency for companies that attempt to sell products to our consumers, because that means the content becomes secondary. In order to receive value from your consumers, you first have to produce something valuable enough.
The challenge of going entirely Bitcoin is that you are asking your audience to wade into the realm of bad UX. Lightning has been one of the backbones for monetization for The Bugle as micropayments are great for users looking to send small payments.
Using Lightning is difficult. Lightning users have had to contend with rug pulls from easy-to-use Lightning wallets, the bad UX of managing channels on your own node, failed transactions, bugs on the Fountain app, and much more.
Some may claim that tools like Fountain, Nostr, BTCPay Server, and other tools that allow content consumers to send bitcoin to content creators lack the UX necessary to make a difference. This seems to be the general consensus. “The revolution needs to have good UX for it to even happen” is, in my opinion, flawed thinking. The bad UX of these platforms allows them to predominantly be occupied by actual revolutionaries and scares away the faint of heart, who find using their brain even the slightest an obstacle so insurmountable that they end up watching Netflix instead.
At The Bugle, we are not competing with Netflix. We are not catering to those who do not have the willingness or capacity to think. We are catering to the few, the proud, the revolutionaries. According to our analytics, 90% of our podcast listeners use Fountain. We are limiting our potential audience growth by focusing on promoting our content on platforms with poor user experience, but in doing so, we are targeting those that actually matter. The Bugle is not for your boomer father who believes that smoking cigarettes is bad for you, believes in the sanctity of institutions, and has a lot of opinions on things he has done zero research on. No, we are catering to those who have done the proof-of-work and have an opinion that actually matters.
Bitcoin originally had horrible UX and therefore was only used by revolutionaries. Those who were mining thousands of bitcoin on the CPUs in the very beginning may be(come) some of the richest individuals in human history. Satoshi did not pause the revolution in order to first implement good UX. He knew that the NPCs who were terrified of using command lines would eventually come but that in order for the project to be successful, it had to start with those who were willing to wade into the unknown.
Our society lacks personal responsibility. It lacks accountability. It does not value the individual. It preaches altruism and focuses on the “common good”. All of this results from demands for good UX. As a result, the weakest (gayest) rise to the top. Everything is based on a popularity contest determined by the least exceptional among us. The idea of having a real meritocracy is threatening to those who refuse to actually do any work, or who find it challenging to organize brain cells for tasks other than superficial pleasure.
I reject these premises. I believe that we can build a valuable media company while using bad UX. I believe we can have more impact broadly by seeking to exclusively target those with the capacity to wade into nuance and go beyond brain-dead groupthink. My whole life I have hungered for content that has depth and meaning. Sitting on the sidelines hoping that someone else steps to the plate is not the mindset of someone who matters. I will not spend my time trying to convince stupid people not to be stupid. If I did that, it would be because I do not value my time and do not value myself. Instead, I will spend my time trying to inspire the revolutionaries, the doers, the people who are demoralized because they feel isolated in a sea of mediocrity.
My name is Richard Greaser,
And I am the John Galt of journalism.
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This piece is an article featured in the latest Print edition of Bitcoin Magazine, The Lightning Issue. We’re sharing it here to show the ideas explored throughout the full issue.