Celia, Get off stripe. I had to with my business…for expressing certain views they punish you in a secretive subversive way. We switched to other means of doing business transactions. I’ll let you know what those are when my wife wakes up (she does all the research on that stuff), and has found the most safe and freedom forward companies to work with.
She can't "get off" of Stripe. It is what Substack uses as a payment processor. Robert Malone revealed that Stripe wanted to collect all of his past, present, and future bank transaction on his account that was linked to his Substack income. He disputed it, and for now Stripe is not collecting that data from authors.
But you are correct that we need to not support them, or companies that use them to process payments. The company who takes care of my pool switched to Stripe as a payment collector. I read the Stripe user agreement before agreeing to it, and sure enough, found out that they were going to collect all of my transaction data as well. There is no reason for this other than to monitor which merchants you are doing business with. I texted the pool company owner and he is letting me pay him through Zelle because I told him I was going to cancel my service with him if I had to pay through Stripe.
The problem is that even if substack admitted other payment processors, the software needs to be able to check the level of perks of each reader, to grant access to paid articles or podcasts.
So, any other payment processor needs a way to connect their service to operate with substack's content management system. Not gonna happen!
It's just horrible how these payment processing companies censor people because they are liable for what they publish. It's a very subtle form of political censorship. Shameless!
Celia had in the past a problem with one of those fund raising campaign sites. Controversy is unacceptable.
so readers could pay lump sum via paypal? payment channel could run parallel? or CF needs own website + patreon subs? CF might entertain some biz, IT counsel...
Maybe, Celia could "gift" subscriptions to people that donate to her using paypal or patreon or whatever else there is that won't censor her (Patreon suuuuuucks!)
She would have to check manually the email of the subscriber and gift the subscription. Less AI nightmare, more human touch.
exactly. i know someone here who does that because he didn't like the cut that stripe takes.
and something i will consider for my own susbstack going forward. although mine is without paywall and so very few paid subscribers as of yet. and because of my 'style' of writing and subject matter it will take time for my audience to find me. (and if substack is part of the skewing, then even longer of course.) interesting times!
Hi Celia, what a pain! I've been one of your paying subscribers for a couple years now, I think. Two or three, I forget. You've been doing really great work! I'm happy to have been helping you do so, in a small way.
Now, I might have to cancel my subscription. At least the paid part. Not sure yet. That depends on my upcoming diagnosis. My remaining time on Earth might end up being very short. We'll see, I don't know yet but it's not looking good. So, if you see a cancelation from me, that will be why. I don't want my wife to have to deal with recurring payments that she won't know what they are or even what it is.
My brother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. 80 % of his pancreas was removed. He was 42 when this occurred. He took insulin because loss of that much pancreas made him diabetic and took digestive enzymes with every meal, got serious about exercise and completely changed his diet, eating low fat low sugar (he had been overweight for years); he lived for another 12 years or so before he had other issues, passing away a week before his 57th birthday.
He ate clean. He learned all he could and made huge changes. He was very careful with his diet. I think if he ate the crap you mentioned he wouldn't have done as well as he did. He had two young kids that motivated him.
Thanks Celia. I am reading your incredible book “Serious Adverse Events”. I had a teenage daughter who worked at Tower Records in the nineties and was regularly buying SPIN and so was exposed to the mind blowing truth you bravely put out. It is the second copy I have purchased because my inappropriately urinating cat decided to hit a stack of books including yours by my bed! Your research opened my eyes to the way the world works and I am forever grateful.
Celia, I've also lost several of these "disputes" and had money taken out of my account as a charge back and then, on top of that, had to pay "dispute fees." These were from paid subscribers who said they had cancelled and their accounts were still charged. As a Substack author, I regularly have subscribers cancel and I have nothing to do with whether these people were charged or if they immediately stop being charged when they "unsubscribe" (which is what should happen).
My efforts to dispute these claims mirrored your own. I tried to email the subscribers and discuss this or get more details and received no reply. I, of course, lost my "disputes."
Also, I wonder about the payments we receive as authors and whether these match-up with the new and recurring subscription revenue authors are expecting to receive.
I've had examples where I get a flurry of "new paid subscriber" notices after a popular article. I think I have X new paid subscribers, but some of these payments don't go through and I don't get paid. So, if I thought I might have 10 new paid subscribers, I only ended up with, say, 7.
At my Substack, in my first three months as a Substack author, I went from averaging 27 new paid subscribers a month to, now, about three a month (over the last several months).
I have more total subscribers and readers, but this has translated into far fewer new paid subscribers ... which seems counter-intuitive.
I've written several stories, mentioning that my "Spider Sense" says "something" has changed at Substack and/or Stripe. It's possible this is just paranoia on my part ... or maybe not.
My sense is the boldest "contrarian" or "dissident" writers are experiencing much more difficulty attracting (and retaining) new subscribers than the leftist writers, who I don't think have the audience size their Substack metrics proclaim.
Thanks for sharing these details from your excellent newsletter.
A happy "paid" subscriber.
P.S. Also, Half the newsletters I pay for every month, I do not receive in my email account - and I've checked Spam, the articles are not going there either.
I’ve analyzed Substack metrics from my own newsletter every way possible. (Substack actually provides great data to allow someone to easily identify changing trends in total readership, total subscribers and paid subscribers.)
My favorite metric, which I created, measures the number of “story reads” it takes to produce one new “paid subscriber.”
Speaking for myself, all my trends are negative and alarming. For example, at my recent “new-paid subscribers/month” figure, it will take me about nine more years to get to 1,000 paid subscribers.
When I did this same calculation after my first six months as a newsletter author, I was on pace to be at 1,000 paid subscribers by the end of next year. (It would have taken me a little less than four years to reach this “magic number." I started my Stack 23 months ago).
I also read glowing feature stories produced by Substack about “Substack success stories.” These are almost always ultra-liberal sites. For example, a liberal 77-year-old columnist from California - who was recently fired from his newspaper - already had more than 2,000 paid subscribers three months after starting his Substack (allegedly, according to Substack).
I look at the “likes” and “reader comments” this man’s posts generate and they are about 80 percent smaller than my own (and I have only 309 paid subscribers).
It feels like independent journalists and writers are being submitted to death by a thousand cuts. Nonetheless the truth is ALWAYS going to come out. No matter what the oligarchs think, life finds a way to prevail. Thank you for your work.
You have our emails. If you did happen to get shut down you could retain contact with your subscribers. One downside would be that new readers would have to come from word-of-mouth. Another would be that you would have to handle payment arrangements yourself instead of having Substack do it for you.
We can hope that does not happen. If we lost you, we would probably also lose a whole universe of people who tell the truth as they see it.
I'm laughing about the photoshopped Kamala "card-carrying commie" piece. Hilarious! I hope it goes viral - as a meme/joke. I would bet the farm that it's fake.
Thanks for bringing the goods, Celia! Sorry that nasty dispute happened. It's good to know what happens on the back end of subscribership.
I tried to reply with the email below; but it came back undelivered...
I have been trying to encourage people with various forms of connections through Substack, Patrion, etc. to get alternative ways to have two way communication with their people. Many don't seem to want a two-way communication. It is often very hard to find a way to communicate with these people. Either they do no not want to or are not allowed. I tried to reach out with a story I thought was being ignored; but could reach no one.
So, I suggest you get a personal mailing list together with email, snail mail, anything and everything.
I believe that the censorship will tighten up as much as possible before the next attack. This might be soon. These platforms are mostly run by corporations it seems.
I think we better ask ourselves, "Why would they kill those most likely to trust them and comply first?" None of the answers I can imagine to that question are nice.
You need to edit your post. Never post your personal information on an open forum like this. I'm sure Celia appreciates your support, but I hope she sees and deletes your comment.
Sorry about all the hassle with the disputes, sound a little fishy. Normally a bank will not get involved unless the dispute cannot be mutually resolved. Take care, hopefully it is just a couple unreasonable people. ps I have have no problem subscribing and unsubscribing to Substacks; it may take a month and you get charge for an additional month, but that is not a big deal.
Are you still using yahoo? Please consider joining a paid email service like tuta.com or protonmail.com
We are moving to a world where no service will be for free.
That old phrase that says "if you are not paying for it then you are the product" has changed; now it's "even if you do pay for something you are still treated as a product."
I think a wiki site could be useful to organize information. Only selected users should be part of that community, so that not anyone can write in those pages. And probably some pages should not be in the open. Something like the dokuwiki software used in either of these two hosting services:
There are maaaany companies who offer web hosting, web housing and application such as wikis and chats and blogs and many other things, which are overwhelming just to mention.
My idea is to create a website called something like "The Truth Barrier wiki" or something like that. Perhaps you can also get funds there, using another payment processing service. But that's out of the substack universe, so many users will not go there, unless you publish posts in substack that link to your external wiki.
Perhaps the future of independent journalism is wiki or locals.net or video platform with chat and superchats, all encrypted. Whatever, users are lazy and easily distracted, so they cannot be bothered too much to use vpns or encryption or crypto currencies (which I've always distrusted, btw.) Content should be easy, like walking into a cafe and ordering a cup of tea or something like that.
I've never used or managed a wiki documentation software or website. I've never been interested in websites or in administering anything. But I can volunteer some of my time to the cause. I'm a natural agent of policing, haha.
By the way: everybody in the world gets depressed on Xwitter. It is depressogenic software. Facebook creates paranoids and Reddit creates utter sociopaths. Substack is the internet's Purgatory.
Thank you, Celia, for being the beautiful heart that you are! We love you, deeply appreciate your investigative courage, unconditional truth seeking and your stunningly brilliant writing! We will continue to support you in as many ways as we can.
I love you Celia and wish I could send money. Always read you first in my daily list. At 82 I still like to know what is going on. Much love for humanity and can see that behind the ugly masks are real souls.
By "pinching off funds." I think that might be what's happening. If something is happening to certain "dissident authors," it would be via some sophisticated mechanisms.
I have had a number of people start a dispute. I let a couple go, and then responded to one, where I had the email address, saying, like you: write to me, I will ensure you get the cancellation - and there is a way on Stripe we can refund money (which the person decided she did not want, and instead is writing to Ed Wackerman - interesting how this can turn out!!!).
Celia, Get off stripe. I had to with my business…for expressing certain views they punish you in a secretive subversive way. We switched to other means of doing business transactions. I’ll let you know what those are when my wife wakes up (she does all the research on that stuff), and has found the most safe and freedom forward companies to work with.
She can't "get off" of Stripe. It is what Substack uses as a payment processor. Robert Malone revealed that Stripe wanted to collect all of his past, present, and future bank transaction on his account that was linked to his Substack income. He disputed it, and for now Stripe is not collecting that data from authors.
But you are correct that we need to not support them, or companies that use them to process payments. The company who takes care of my pool switched to Stripe as a payment collector. I read the Stripe user agreement before agreeing to it, and sure enough, found out that they were going to collect all of my transaction data as well. There is no reason for this other than to monitor which merchants you are doing business with. I texted the pool company owner and he is letting me pay him through Zelle because I told him I was going to cancel my service with him if I had to pay through Stripe.
excellent -- it takes time and energy to chase the fine print stasi
Those recommendations would be of interest to me too. Thanks!
Me too!
The problem is that even if substack admitted other payment processors, the software needs to be able to check the level of perks of each reader, to grant access to paid articles or podcasts.
So, any other payment processor needs a way to connect their service to operate with substack's content management system. Not gonna happen!
It's just horrible how these payment processing companies censor people because they are liable for what they publish. It's a very subtle form of political censorship. Shameless!
Celia had in the past a problem with one of those fund raising campaign sites. Controversy is unacceptable.
so readers could pay lump sum via paypal? payment channel could run parallel? or CF needs own website + patreon subs? CF might entertain some biz, IT counsel...
Maybe, Celia could "gift" subscriptions to people that donate to her using paypal or patreon or whatever else there is that won't censor her (Patreon suuuuuucks!)
She would have to check manually the email of the subscriber and gift the subscription. Less AI nightmare, more human touch.
it seems paypal also has censored and deplatformed those spreading honest health advice. it's the money lenders in the temple all over again!
exactly. i know someone here who does that because he didn't like the cut that stripe takes.
and something i will consider for my own susbstack going forward. although mine is without paywall and so very few paid subscribers as of yet. and because of my 'style' of writing and subject matter it will take time for my audience to find me. (and if substack is part of the skewing, then even longer of course.) interesting times!
Hi Celia, what a pain! I've been one of your paying subscribers for a couple years now, I think. Two or three, I forget. You've been doing really great work! I'm happy to have been helping you do so, in a small way.
Now, I might have to cancel my subscription. At least the paid part. Not sure yet. That depends on my upcoming diagnosis. My remaining time on Earth might end up being very short. We'll see, I don't know yet but it's not looking good. So, if you see a cancelation from me, that will be why. I don't want my wife to have to deal with recurring payments that she won't know what they are or even what it is.
So sorry to hear this. You have my prayers.
don't believe the bastards. diet heals all. Thomas Seyfried youtube, honest doctor.
My brother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. 80 % of his pancreas was removed. He was 42 when this occurred. He took insulin because loss of that much pancreas made him diabetic and took digestive enzymes with every meal, got serious about exercise and completely changed his diet, eating low fat low sugar (he had been overweight for years); he lived for another 12 years or so before he had other issues, passing away a week before his 57th birthday.
Low fat naturally or man-made low fat rubbish?
He ate clean. He learned all he could and made huge changes. He was very careful with his diet. I think if he ate the crap you mentioned he wouldn't have done as well as he did. He had two young kids that motivated him.
I'm so glad you had extra time with him.
Yes! Me too! What a nice thing to say!
Thanks Celia. I am reading your incredible book “Serious Adverse Events”. I had a teenage daughter who worked at Tower Records in the nineties and was regularly buying SPIN and so was exposed to the mind blowing truth you bravely put out. It is the second copy I have purchased because my inappropriately urinating cat decided to hit a stack of books including yours by my bed! Your research opened my eyes to the way the world works and I am forever grateful.
love the cat tale
Celia, I've also lost several of these "disputes" and had money taken out of my account as a charge back and then, on top of that, had to pay "dispute fees." These were from paid subscribers who said they had cancelled and their accounts were still charged. As a Substack author, I regularly have subscribers cancel and I have nothing to do with whether these people were charged or if they immediately stop being charged when they "unsubscribe" (which is what should happen).
My efforts to dispute these claims mirrored your own. I tried to email the subscribers and discuss this or get more details and received no reply. I, of course, lost my "disputes."
Also, I wonder about the payments we receive as authors and whether these match-up with the new and recurring subscription revenue authors are expecting to receive.
I've had examples where I get a flurry of "new paid subscriber" notices after a popular article. I think I have X new paid subscribers, but some of these payments don't go through and I don't get paid. So, if I thought I might have 10 new paid subscribers, I only ended up with, say, 7.
At my Substack, in my first three months as a Substack author, I went from averaging 27 new paid subscribers a month to, now, about three a month (over the last several months).
I have more total subscribers and readers, but this has translated into far fewer new paid subscribers ... which seems counter-intuitive.
I've written several stories, mentioning that my "Spider Sense" says "something" has changed at Substack and/or Stripe. It's possible this is just paranoia on my part ... or maybe not.
My sense is the boldest "contrarian" or "dissident" writers are experiencing much more difficulty attracting (and retaining) new subscribers than the leftist writers, who I don't think have the audience size their Substack metrics proclaim.
Thanks for sharing these details from your excellent newsletter.
A happy "paid" subscriber.
P.S. Also, Half the newsletters I pay for every month, I do not receive in my email account - and I've checked Spam, the articles are not going there either.
I’ve analyzed Substack metrics from my own newsletter every way possible. (Substack actually provides great data to allow someone to easily identify changing trends in total readership, total subscribers and paid subscribers.)
My favorite metric, which I created, measures the number of “story reads” it takes to produce one new “paid subscriber.”
Speaking for myself, all my trends are negative and alarming. For example, at my recent “new-paid subscribers/month” figure, it will take me about nine more years to get to 1,000 paid subscribers.
When I did this same calculation after my first six months as a newsletter author, I was on pace to be at 1,000 paid subscribers by the end of next year. (It would have taken me a little less than four years to reach this “magic number." I started my Stack 23 months ago).
I also read glowing feature stories produced by Substack about “Substack success stories.” These are almost always ultra-liberal sites. For example, a liberal 77-year-old columnist from California - who was recently fired from his newspaper - already had more than 2,000 paid subscribers three months after starting his Substack (allegedly, according to Substack).
I look at the “likes” and “reader comments” this man’s posts generate and they are about 80 percent smaller than my own (and I have only 309 paid subscribers).
Nothing passes the smell test.
Sasha Latypova has talked about the same phenomenon.
Just upgraded to a paid subscription.
It feels like independent journalists and writers are being submitted to death by a thousand cuts. Nonetheless the truth is ALWAYS going to come out. No matter what the oligarchs think, life finds a way to prevail. Thank you for your work.
independent journalists have been starving for decades. even Poe starved.
Yes, life, as well as the truth always seems to prevail…
You have our emails. If you did happen to get shut down you could retain contact with your subscribers. One downside would be that new readers would have to come from word-of-mouth. Another would be that you would have to handle payment arrangements yourself instead of having Substack do it for you.
We can hope that does not happen. If we lost you, we would probably also lose a whole universe of people who tell the truth as they see it.
So True…..
I'm laughing about the photoshopped Kamala "card-carrying commie" piece. Hilarious! I hope it goes viral - as a meme/joke. I would bet the farm that it's fake.
Thanks for bringing the goods, Celia! Sorry that nasty dispute happened. It's good to know what happens on the back end of subscribership.
I'd like one in my own name.
I tried to reply with the email below; but it came back undelivered...
I have been trying to encourage people with various forms of connections through Substack, Patrion, etc. to get alternative ways to have two way communication with their people. Many don't seem to want a two-way communication. It is often very hard to find a way to communicate with these people. Either they do no not want to or are not allowed. I tried to reach out with a story I thought was being ignored; but could reach no one.
So, I suggest you get a personal mailing list together with email, snail mail, anything and everything.
I believe that the censorship will tighten up as much as possible before the next attack. This might be soon. These platforms are mostly run by corporations it seems.
I think we better ask ourselves, "Why would they kill those most likely to trust them and comply first?" None of the answers I can imagine to that question are nice.
David Kennis
1-515-290-5615
820 Wilson Ave.
Ames, Iowa 50010
davidmichaelkennis@gmail.com
You need to edit your post. Never post your personal information on an open forum like this. I'm sure Celia appreciates your support, but I hope she sees and deletes your comment.
You really should delete your personal info.
This is a very good idea.
david take it down
Sorry about all the hassle with the disputes, sound a little fishy. Normally a bank will not get involved unless the dispute cannot be mutually resolved. Take care, hopefully it is just a couple unreasonable people. ps I have have no problem subscribing and unsubscribing to Substacks; it may take a month and you get charge for an additional month, but that is not a big deal.
Dear Celia,
Are you still using yahoo? Please consider joining a paid email service like tuta.com or protonmail.com
We are moving to a world where no service will be for free.
That old phrase that says "if you are not paying for it then you are the product" has changed; now it's "even if you do pay for something you are still treated as a product."
I think a wiki site could be useful to organize information. Only selected users should be part of that community, so that not anyone can write in those pages. And probably some pages should not be in the open. Something like the dokuwiki software used in either of these two hosting services:
peaknetworks.com/hosting/dokuwiki-hosting
hostdash.com/dokuwiki-hosting/
There are maaaany companies who offer web hosting, web housing and application such as wikis and chats and blogs and many other things, which are overwhelming just to mention.
My idea is to create a website called something like "The Truth Barrier wiki" or something like that. Perhaps you can also get funds there, using another payment processing service. But that's out of the substack universe, so many users will not go there, unless you publish posts in substack that link to your external wiki.
Perhaps the future of independent journalism is wiki or locals.net or video platform with chat and superchats, all encrypted. Whatever, users are lazy and easily distracted, so they cannot be bothered too much to use vpns or encryption or crypto currencies (which I've always distrusted, btw.) Content should be easy, like walking into a cafe and ordering a cup of tea or something like that.
I've never used or managed a wiki documentation software or website. I've never been interested in websites or in administering anything. But I can volunteer some of my time to the cause. I'm a natural agent of policing, haha.
By the way: everybody in the world gets depressed on Xwitter. It is depressogenic software. Facebook creates paranoids and Reddit creates utter sociopaths. Substack is the internet's Purgatory.
I love “Substack is the internet’s Purgatory”! 🙏🏻
Thank you, Celia, for being the beautiful heart that you are! We love you, deeply appreciate your investigative courage, unconditional truth seeking and your stunningly brilliant writing! We will continue to support you in as many ways as we can.
I love you Celia and wish I could send money. Always read you first in my daily list. At 82 I still like to know what is going on. Much love for humanity and can see that behind the ugly masks are real souls.
A Canadian Grandma
My spidery senses say it's just another way for the bad guys to run interference against those, including Celia, who still bring honest journalism.
Clearly, Celia, you are being pressured, censored and robbed by “their” [and we all know who THEY are] clever use of pinching off funding.
This happened to Dutchinsense for his brilliant analysis and method of earthquake prediction. Cost him everything and all accounts and subscribers.
Tore Maras aka TORE SAYS
While in our times coping with these intrusive censors is a Badge of Honor it doesn’t put petrol in the car.
In my case SUBSTACK told me over and over that i am a free subscriber even after i paid for 2 annual subscription to your work
They apparently fixed it this morning
By "pinching off funds." I think that might be what's happening. If something is happening to certain "dissident authors," it would be via some sophisticated mechanisms.
Sadly people are giving up trying to hold back a relentless tide
I have had a number of people start a dispute. I let a couple go, and then responded to one, where I had the email address, saying, like you: write to me, I will ensure you get the cancellation - and there is a way on Stripe we can refund money (which the person decided she did not want, and instead is writing to Ed Wackerman - interesting how this can turn out!!!).