   How to get shanked doing what people say they want

     don’t preach to me
     Mr. integrity

   (EDIT: removed the link to Samantha’s post, because the arments and the
   grubers and the rest of The Deck Clique got what they wanted: a non-proper
   person driven off the internet lightly capped with a dusting of
   transphobia along the way, all totally okay because the ends justify the
   means, and it’s okay when “good” people do it.)

   First, I need to say something about this article: the reason I’m writing
   it infuriates me. Worse than installing CS 3 or Acrobat 7 ever did, and
   the former inspired comparisons to fecophile porn. I’m actually too mad to
   cuss. Well, not completely, but in this case, I don’t think the people I’m
   mad at are worth the creativity I try to put into profanity. This is about
   a brownfield of hypocrisy and viciously deliberate mischaracterization
   that “shame” cannot even come close to the shame those behind it should
   feel.

   Now, read this post by Samantha Bielefeld: The Elephant in the Room.
   First, it is a well-written critical piece that raises a few points in a
   calm, rational, nonconfrontational fashion, exactly the kind of things the
   pushers of The Great Big Lie say we need more of, as opposed to the
   screaming that is the norm in such cases.

   …sorry, I should explain “The Great Big Lie”. There are several, but in
   this case, our specific instance of “The Great Big Lie” is about
   criticism. Over and over, you hear from the very people I am not going to
   be nice to in this that we need “better” criticsm. Instead of rage and
   anger, volume and vitriol, we need in-depth rational criticism, that isn’t
   personal or ad hominem. That it should focus on points, not people.

   That, readers, is “The Big Lie”. It is a lie so big that if one ponders
   the reality of it, as I am going to, one wonders why anyone would believe
   it. It is a lie and it is one we should stop telling.

   Samantha’s points (I assume you read it, for you are smart people who know
   the importance of such things) are fairly clear:

    1. With the release of Overcast 2.0, a product Samantha actually likes,
       Marco Arment moved to a patronage model that will probably be
       successful for him.
    2. Arment’s insistence that “anyone can do this” while technically true,
       (anyone can in fact, implement this pricing model), also implies that
       “anyone” can have the kind of success that a developer with Marco’s
       history, financial status, and deep ties to the Apple News Web is
       expected to have. This is silly.
    3. Marco Arment occupies a fairly unique position in the Apple universe,
       (gained by hard work and no small talent), and because of that,
       benefits from a set of privileges that a new developer or even one
       that has been around for a long time, but isn’t, well, Marco, not only
       don’t have, but have little chance of attaining anytime soon.
    4. Marco has earned his success and is entitled to the benefits and
       privileges it brings, but he seems rather blind to all of that, and
       seems to still imagine himself as “two guys in a garage”. This is just
       not correct.
    5. In addition, the benefits and privileges of the above ensure that by
       releasing Overcast 2 as a free app, with patronage pricing, he has, if
       not gutted, severely hurt the ability of folks actually selling their
       apps for an up-front price of not free to continue doing so. This has
       the effect of accelerating the “race to the bottom” in the podcast
       listening app segment, which hurts devs who cannot afford to work on a
       “I don’t really need this money, so whatever you feel like sending is
       okay” model.

   None of this is incorrect. None of this is an ad hominem attack in any
   way. It is just pointing out that a developer of Arment’s stature and
   status lives in a very different world than someone in East Frog Balls,
   Arkansas trying to make a living off of App sales. Our dev in EFB doesn’t
   have the main sites on the Apple web falling all over themselves to review
   their app the way that Arment does. They’re not friends with the people
   being The Loop, Daring Fireball, SixColors, iMore, The Mac Observer, etc.,
   yadda.

   So, our hero, in a fit of well-meaning ignorance writes this piece (posted
   this morning, 14 Oct. 15) and of course, the response and any criticisms
   are just as reasonable and thoughtful.

   If you really believe that, you are the most preciously ignorant person in
   the world, and can I have your seriously charmed life.

   The response, from all quarters, including Marco, someone who is so
   sensitive to criticism that the word “useless” is enough to shut him down,
   who blocked a friend of mine for the high crime of pointing out that his
   review of podcasting mics centered around higher priced gear and ignored
   folks without the scratch, who might not be ready for such things, is, in
   a single word, disgusting. Vomitous even.

   It’s an hours-long dogpile that beggars even my imagination, and I can
   imagine almost anything. Seriously, it’s all there in Samantha’s Twitter
   Feed. From what I can tell, she’s understandably shocked over it. I
   however was not. This one comment in her feed made me smile (warning, this
   wanders a bit…er…LOT. Twitter timelines are not easy to put together):

     I can see why you have some reservations about publishing it, but my gut
     feeling is that he would take it better than Nilay.

   Oh honey, bless your sweet, ignorant heart. Marco is one of the biggest
   pushers of The Big Lie, and one of the reasons it is such a lie.

   But it gets better. First, you have the “hey, Marco earned his status!”
   lot. A valid point, and one Bielefeld explicitly acknowledges, here:

     From his ground floor involvement in Tumblr (for which he is now a
     millionaire), to the creation and sale of a wildly successful app called
     Instapaper, he has become a household name in technology minded circles.
     It is this extensive time spent in the spotlight, the huge following on
     Twitter, and dedicated listeners of his weekly aired Accidental Tech
     Podcast, that has granted him the freedom to break from seeking revenue
     in more traditional manners.

   and here:

     I’m not knocking his success, he has put effort into his line of work,
     and has built his own life.

   and here:

     He has earned his time in the spotlight, and it’s only natural for him
     to take advantage of it.

   But still, you get the people telling her something she already
   acknowledge:

     I don’t think he’s blind. he’s worked to where he has gotten and has had
     failures like everyone else.

   Thank you for restating something in the article. To the person who wrote
   it.

   In the original article, Samantha talked about the money Marco makes from
   his podcast. She based that on the numbers provided by ATP in terms of
   sponsorship rates and the number of current sponsors the podcast has. Is
   this going to yield perfect numbers? No. But the numbers you get from it
   will at least be reasonable, or should be unless the published sponsorship
   rates are just fantasy, and you’re stupid for taking them seriously.

   At first, she went with a simple formula:

     $4K x 3 per episode = $12K x 52 weeks / 3 hosts splitting it.

   That’s not someone making shit up, right? Rather quickly, someone pointed
   out that she’d made an error in how she calculated it:

     That’s $4k per ad, no? So more like $12–16k per episode.

   She’d already realized her mistake and fixed it.

     which is actually wrong, and I’m correcting now. $4,000 per sponsor, per
     episode! So, $210,000 per year.

   Again, this is based on publicly available data the only kind someone not
   part of ATP or a close friend of Arment has access to. So while her
   numbers may be wrong, if they are, there’s no way for her to know that.
   She’s basing her opinion on actual available data. Which is sadly rare.

   This becomes a huge flashpoint. You name a reason to attack her over this,
   people do. No really. For example, she’s not calculating his income taxes
   correctly:

     especially since it isn’t his only source of income thus, not an
     indicator of his marginal inc. tax bracket.

     thus, guessing net income is more haphazard than stating approx. gross
     income.

   Ye Gods. She’s not doing his taxes for him, her point is invalid?

   Then there’s the people who seem to have not read anything past what other
   people are telling them:

     Not sure what to make of your Marco piece, to be honest. You mention his
     fame, whatever, but what’s the main idea here?

   Just how spoon-fed do you have to be? Have you no teeth?

   Of course, Marco jumps in, and predictably, he’s snippy:

     If you’re going to speak in precise absolutes, it’s best to first ensure
     that you’re correct.

   If you’re going to be like that, it’s best to provide better data. Don’t
   get snippy when someone is going off the only data available, and is
   clearly open to revising based on better data.

   Then Marco’s friends/fans get into it:

     I really don’t understand why it’s anyone’s business

   Samantha is trying to qualify for sainthood at this point:

     It isn’t really, it was a way of putting his income in context in
     regards to his ability to gamble with Overcast.

   Again, she’s trying to drag people back to her actual point, but no one is
   going to play. The storm has begun. Then we get people who are just
   spouting nonsense:

     Why is that only relevant for him? It’s a pretty weird metric,especially
     since his apps aren’t free.

   Wha?? Overcast 2 is absolutely free. Samantha points this out:

     His app is free, that’s what sparked the article to begin with.

   The response is literally a parallel to “How can there be global warming
   if it snowed today in my town?”

     If it’s free, how have I paid for it? Twice?

   She is still trying:

     You paid $4.99 to unlock functionality in Overcast 1.0 and you chose to
     support him with no additional functionality in 2.0

   He is having none of it. IT SNOWED! SNOWWWWWWW!

     Yes. That’s not free. Free is when you choose not to make money. And
     that can be weaponized. But that’s not what Overcast does.

   She however, is relentless:

     No, it’s still free. You can choose to support it, you are required to
     pay $4.99 for Pocket Casts. Totally different model.

   Dude seems to give up. (Note: allllll the people bagging on her are men.
   All of them. Mansplaining like hell. And I’d bet every one of them
   considers themselves a feminist.)

   We get another guy trying to push the narrative she’s punishing him for
   his success, which is just…it’s stupid, okay? Stupid.

     It also wasn’t my point in writing my piece today, but it seems to be
     everyone’s focus.

   (UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR)

     I think the focus should be more on that fact that while it’s difficult,
     Marco spent years building his audience.

     It doesn’t matter what he makes it how he charges. If the audience be
     earned is willing to pay for it, awesome.

   She tries, oh lord, she tries:

     To assert that he isn’t doing anything any other dev couldn’t, is wrong.
     It’s successful because it’s Marco.

   But no, HE KNOWS HER POINT BETTER THAN SHE DOES:

     No, it’s successful because he busted his ass to make it so. It’s like
     any other business. He grew it.

   Christ. This is like a field of strawmen. Stupid ones. Very stupid ones.

   One guy tries to blame it all on Apple, another in a string of Wha???
   moments:

     the appropriate context is Apple’s App Store policies. Other devs aren’t
     Marco’s responsibility

   Seriously? Dude, are you even trying to talk about what Samantha actually
   wrote? At this point, Samantha is clearly mystified at the entire thing:

     Why has the conversation suddenly turned to focus on nothing more than
     ATP sponsorship income?

   Because it’s a nit they can pick and allows them to ignore everything you
   wrote. That’s the only reason.

   One guy is “confused”:

     I see. He does have clout, so are you saying he’s too modest in how he
     sees himself as a dev?

     Yes. He can’t be equated to the vast majority of other developers. Like
     calling Gruber, “just another blogger”.

     Alright, that’s fair. I was just confused by the $ and fame angle at
     first.

   Samantha’s point centers on the benefits Marco gains via his fame and
   background. HOW DO YOU NOT MENTION THAT? HOW IS THAT CONFUSING?

   People of course are telling her it’s her fault for mentioning a salient
   fact at all:

     Why has the conversation suddenly turned to focus on nothing more than
     ATP sponsorship income?

     Maybe because you went there with your article?

     As a way of rationalizing his ability to gamble with the potential for
     Overcast to generate income…not the norm at all.

   Of course, had she not brought up those important points, she’d have been
   bagged on for “not providing proof”. Lose some, lose more. By now, she’s
   had enough and she just deletes all mention of it. Understandable, but sad
   she was bullied into doing that.

   Yes, bullied. That’s all this is. Bullying. She didn’t lie, cheat, or
   exaagerate. If her numbers were wrong, they weren’t wrong in a way she had
   any ability to do anything about. But there’s blood in the water, and the
   comments and attacks get worse:

     Because you decided to start a conversation about someone else’s
     personal shit. You started this war.

   War. THIS. IS. WAR.

   This is a bunch of nerds attacking someone for reasoned, calm, polite
   criticism of their friend/idol. Samantha is politely pushing back a bit:

     That doesn’t explain why every other part of my article is being pushed
     aside.

   She’s right. This is all nonsense. This is people ignoring her article
   completely, just looking for things to attack so it can be dismissed. It’s
   tribalism at its purest.

   Then some of the other annointed get into it, including Jason Snell in one
   of the most spectactular displays of “I have special knowledge you can’t
   be expected to have, therefore you are totally off base and wrong, even
   though there’s no way for you to know this” I’ve seen in a while. Jason:

     You should never use an ad rate card to estimate ad revenue from any
     media product ever.

     I learned this when I started working for a magazine — rate cards are
     mostly fiction, like prices on new cars

   How…exactly…in the name of whatever deity Jason may believe in…is Samantha
   or anyone not “in the biz” supposed to know this. Also, what exactly does
   a magazine on paper like Macworld have to do with sponsorships for a
   podcast? I have done podcasts that were sponsored, and I can retaliate
   with “we charged what the rate card said we did. Checkmate Elitests!”

   Samantha basically abases herself at his feet:

     I understand my mistake, and it’s unfortunate that it has completely
     diluted the point of my article.

   I think she should have told him where and how to stuff that nonsense, but
   she’s a nicer person than I am. Also, it’s appropriate that Jason’s
   twitter avatar has its nose in the air. This is some rank snobbery. It’s
   disgusting and if anyone pulled that on him, Jason would be very upset.
   But hey, one cannot criticize The Marco without getting pushback. By
   “pushback”, I mean “an unrelenting fecal flood”.

   Her only mistake was criticizing one of the Kool Kids. Folks, if you
   criticize anyone in The Deck Clique, or their friends, expect the same
   thing, regardless of tone or point.

   Another App Dev, seemingly unable to parse Samantha’s words, needs more
   explanation:

     so just looking over your mentions, I’m curious what exactly was your
     main point? Ignoring the podcast income bits.

   Oh wait, he didn’t even read the article. Good on you, Dev Guy, good. on.
   you. Still, she plays nice with someone who didn’t even read her article:

     That a typical unknown developer can’t depend on patronage to generate
     revenue, and charging for apps will become a negative.

   Marco comes back of course, and now basically accuses her of lying about
   other devs talking to her and supporting her point:

     How many actual developers did you hear from, really? Funny how almost
     nobody wants to give a (real) name on these accusations.

   Really? You’re going to do that? “There’s no name, so I don’t think it’s a
   real person.” Just…what’s the Joe Welch quote from the McCarthy hearings?

     Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough.
     Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense
     of decency?

   That is what this is at this point: character assasination because she
   said something critical of A Popular Person. It’s disgusting. Depressing
   and disgusting. No one, none of these people have seriously discussed her
   point, heck, it looks like they barely bothered to read it, if they did at
   all.

   Marco starts getting really petty with her (no big shock) and Samantha
   finally starts pushing back:

     Glad to see you be the bigger person and ignore the mindset of so many
     developers not relating to you, good for you!

   That of course, is what caused Marco to question the validity, if not the
   existence of her sources. (Funny how anonymous sources are totes okay when
   they convenience Marco et al, and work for oh, Apple, but when they are
   inconvenient? Ha! PROVIDE ME PROOF YOU INTEMPERATE WOMAN!)

   Make no mistake, there’s some sexist shit going on here. Every tweet I’ve
   quoted was authored by a guy.

   Of course, Marco has to play the “I’ve been around longer than you” card
   with this bon mot:

     Yup, before you existed!

   Really dude? I mean, I’m sorry about the penis, but really?

   Mind you, when the criticism isn’t just bizarrely stupid, Samantha reacts
   the way Marco and his ilk claim they would to (if they ever got any valid
   criticism. Which clearly is impossible):

     Not to get into the middle of this, but “income” is not the term you’re
     looking for. “Revenue” is.

     lol. Noted.

     And I wasn’t intending to be a dick, just a lot of people hear/say
     “income” when they intend “revenue”, and then discussion …

     … gets derailed by a jedi handwave of “Expenses”. But outside of
     charitable donation, it is all directly related.

     haha. Thank you for the clarification.

   Note to Marco and the other…whatever they are…that is how one reacts to
   that kind of criticism. With a bit of humor and self-deprecation. You
   should try it sometime. For real, not just in your heads or conversations
   in Irish Pubs in S.F.

   But now, the door has been cracked, and the cheap shots come out:

     @testflight_app: Don’t worry guys, we process @marcoarment’s apps in
     direct proportion to his megabucks earnings. #fairelephant

   (Note: testflight_app is a parody account. Please do not mess with the
   actual testflight folks. They are still cool.)

   Or this…conversation:

   Good job guys. Good job. Defend the tribe. Attack the other. Frederico
   attempts to recover from his stunning display of demeaning douchery:
   ‏@viticci: @s_bielefeld I don’t know if it’s an Italian thing, but
   counting other people’s money is especially weird for me. IMO, bad move in
   the post.

   Samantha is clearly sick of his crap: ‏@s_bielefeld: @viticci That’s what
   I’m referring to, the mistake of ever having mentioned it. So, now, Marco
   can ignore the bigger issue and go on living.

   Good for her. There’s being patient and being roadkill.

   Samantha does put the call out for her sources to maybe let her use their
   names:

     From all of you I heard from earlier, anyone care to go on record?

   My good friend, The Angry Drunk points out the obvious problem:

     Nobody’s going to go on record when they count on Marco’s friends for
     their PR.

   This is true. Again, the sites that are Friends of Marco:

   Daring Fireball

   The Loop

   SixColors

   iMore

   MacStories

   A few others, but I want this post to end one day.

   You piss that crew off, and given how petty rather a few of them have
   demonstrated they are, good luck on getting any kind of notice from them.

   Of course, the idea this could happen is just craycray:

     @KevinColeman .@Angry_Drunk @s_bielefeld @marcoarment Wow, you guys are
     veering right into crazy conspiracy theory territory.
     #JetFuelCantMeltSteelBeams

   Yeah. Because a mature person like Marco would never do anything like
   that.

   Of course, the real point on this is starting to happen:

     you’re getting a lot of heat now but happy you are writing things that
     stir up the community. Hope you continue to be a voice!

     I doubt I will.

   See, they’ve done their job. Mess with the bull, you get the horns. Maybe
   you should find another thing to write about, this isn’t a good place for
   you. Great job y’all.

   Some people aren’t even pretending. They’re just in full strawman mode:

     @timkeller: Unfair to begrudge a person for leveraging past success,
     especially when that success is earned. No ‘luck’ involved.

     @s_bielefeld: @timkeller I plainly stated that I don’t hold his doing
     this against him. Way to twist words.

   I think she’s earned her anger at this point.

   Don’t worry, Marco knows what the real problem is: most devs just suck —

   I have a saying that applies in this case: don’t place your head so far up
   your nethers that you go full Klein Bottle. Marco has gone full Klein
   Bottle. (To be correct, he went FKB some years ago.)

   There are some bright spots. My favorite is when Building Twenty points
   out the real elephant in the room:

     @BuildingTwenty: Both @s_bielefeld & I wrote similar critiques of
     @marcoarment’s pricing model yet the Internet pilloried only the woman.
     Who’d have guessed?

   Yup.

   Another bright spot are these comments from Ian Betteridge, who has been
   doing this even longer than Marco:

     You know, any writer who has never made a single factual error in a
     piece hasn’t ever written anything worth reading.

     I learned my job with the support of people who helped me. Had I
     suffered an Internet pile on for every error I wouldn’t have bothered.

   To which Samantha understandably replies:

     and it’s honestly something I’m contemplating right now, whether to
     continue…

   Gee, I can’t imagine why. Why with comments like this from Chris Breen
   that completely misrepresent Samantha’s point, (who until today, I would
   have absolutely defended as being better than this, something I am
   genuinely saddened to be wrong about), why wouldn’t she want to continue
   doing this?

     If I have this right, some people are outraged that a creator has
     decided to give away his work.

   No Chris, you don’t have this right. But hey, who has time to find out the
   real issue and read an article. I’m sure your friends told you everything
   you need to know.

   Noted Feminist Glenn Fleishman gets a piece of the action too:

   I’m not actually surprised here. I watched Fleishman berate a friend of
   mine who has been an engineer for…heck, waaaaay too long on major software
   products in the most condescending way because she tried to point out that
   as a very technical woman, “The Magazine” literally had nothing to say to
   her and maybe he should fix that. “Impertinent” was I believe what he
   called her, but I may have the specific word wrong. Not the attitude mind
   you. Great Feminists like Glenn do not like uppity women criticizing Great
   Feminists who are their Great Allies.

   Great Feminists are often tools.

   Luckily, I hope, the people who get Samantha’s point also started chiming
   in (and you get 100% of the women commenting here that I’ve seen):

     I don’t think he’s wrong for doing it, he just discusses it as if the
     market’s a level playing field — it isn’t

     This is a great article with lots of great points about the
     sustainability of iOS development. Thank you for publishing it.

     Regardless of the numbers and your view of MA, fair points here about
     confirmation bias in app marketing feasibility
     http://samanthabielefeld.com/the-elephant-in-the-room …

     thank you for posting this, it covers a lot of things people don’t like
     to talk about.

     I’m sure you have caught untold amounts of flak over posting this
     because Marco is blind to his privilege as a developer.

     Catching up on the debate, and agreeing with Harry’s remark. (Enjoyed
     your article, Samantha, and ‘got’ your point.)

   I would like to say I’m surprised at the reaction to Samantha’s article,
   but I’m not. In spite of his loud declarations of support for The Big Lie,
   Marco Arment is as bad at any form of criticism that he hasn’t already
   approved as a very insecure tween. An example from 2011:
   http://www.businessinsider.com/marco-arment-2011-9

   Marco is great with criticism as long as it never actually criticizes him.
   If it does, be prepared a flood of petty, petulant whining that a room
   full of bored preschoolers on a hot day would be hard-pressed to match.

   Today has been…well, it sucks. It sucks because someone doing what all the
   Arments of the world claim to want was naive enough to believe what they
   were told, and found out the hard way just how big a lie The Big Lie is,
   and how vicious people are when you’re silly enough to believe anything
   they say about criticism.

   And note again, every single condescending crack, misrepresentation, and
   strawman had an exclusively male source. Most of them have, at one point
   or another, loudly trumpted themselves as Feminist Allies, as a friend to
   women struggling with the sexism and misogyny in tech. Congratulations
   y’all on being just as bad as the people you claim to oppose.

   Samantha has handled this better than anyone else could have. My respect
   for her as a person and a writer is off the charts. If she choses to walk
   away from blogging in the Apple space, believe me I understand. As bad as
   today was for her, I’ve seen worse. Much worse.

   But I hope she doesn’t. I hope she stays, because she is Doing This Right,
   and in a corner of the internet that has become naught but an endless
   circle jerk, a cliquish collection, a churlish, childish cohort interested
   not in writing or the truth, but in making sure The Right People are
   elevated, and The Others put down, she is someone worth reading and
   listening to. The number people who owe her apologies goes around the
   block, and I don’t think she’ll ever see a one. I’m sure as heck not
   apologizing for them, I’ll not make their lives easier in the least.

   All of you, all. of. you…Marco, Breen, Snell, Vittici, had a chance to
   live by your words. You were faced with reasoned, polite, respectful
   criticism and instead of what you should have done, you all dropped trou
   and sprayed an epic diarrheal discharge all over someone who had done
   nothing to deserve it. Me, I earned most of my aggro, Samantha did not
   earn any of the idiocy I’ve seen today. I hope you’re all proud of
   yourselves. Someone should be, it won’t be me. Ever.

   So I hope she stays, but if she goes, I understand. For what it’s worth, I
   don’t think she’s wrong either way.
