Leading Hispanic author Jon Del Arroz recently took to Facebook to explain why those who boycott major platforms such as Patreon, Indiegogo, and Amazon, mainly hurt indie creators on their own side, despite having the best of intentions.
Well-meaning commenters soon arrived to propose workarounds.
The solution is very simple. Just add a storefront to your web site. And learn to code a custom version of that site so you don’t have to deal with Blogger or WordPress. And build your own distribution network to get your books to retailers, which you’ll also need to build. You’ll also need to build your own payment processor, and you should probably found your own international bank while you’re at it so you can issue your own credit cards. Oh, you’ll also need your own domain registrar because the existing ones can just yank that puppy if they don’t like the cut of your jib.
JDA responds:
All kidding aside, Jon is right. “Build your own X” is a nonstarter when the Big Tech cabal can and will collude to throttle X.
America First host Nick Fuentes correctly grasps the only viable solution.
Amazon, Indiegogo, and PayPal won’t even notice if you deny them their 5-30%. The indie creators who must rely on those converged services to survive, however, will definitely feel the loss of their 70-95% of each transaction.
Not wanting to give money to people who hate you is laudable. I urge people to avoid paying for the privilege of being insulted. But there’s a fundamental difference between shelling out 30 bucks on tickets, popcorn, and corn syrup at the cine-multiplex to directly support frothing Hollywood death cultists, and backing an indie comics project on Kickstarter just to spit in the latter’s eye. The problem is, you’re spitting into a gale force wind, and it’s the indies on your team who get wet.
Is this a shit state of affairs? Yes. Will cutting ties with the tech oligarchs and publishing exclusively out of a personal web site with a storefront solve the problem? Demonstrably not. That way lies accelerated self-ghettoization and total market exile.
The only realistic approach is to keep using the dominant though converged services while we still can, then make the rubble bounce when we’re banned. Better to use the enemy’s strength against him and get our ideas in front of a mass audience than fall back to a digital Benedict Option.
Hopefully the government, the only people with enough power to take Big Tech down, get the antitrust ball rolling. Indies are already eating oldpub and old comics’ lunch on Amazon and Indeigogo. Imagine what we could do on a level playing field.
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