Choose your level of selling out

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Whose money is ok to take?

Ethical operators demand to know.

In the wake of massive layoffs like what happened at Polygon this week, everyone takes to social media to ask why can’t the model work. Why isn’t it profitable. How will media survive.

I no longer think this is the right question. Media ventures work.

The problem isn’t that Polygon’s model didn’t work. The problem is the owners. The problem is making money *the goal.*

Lex, what?! Who’s not running a business for money?

Well, me for one.

I’m with Nathan Grayson: fuck profit. fuck growth.

I run this business because I don’t want to work for anyone else. Not because it’s some grand capitalist enterprise that prints cash.

I made $200k my first year in business because I took on tech clients. I’ll be lucky to break $90k this year. I have purposely lowered that bar for now, because there’s A WHOLE LOT of people I didn’t want to take money from. I’ll even cancel and refund paid subscribers if I find out they’re up to no good. Here! Have your $10 back!

There’s a big delta between billionaires and the dirtbag lifestyle I claim to lead. Selling out is a spectrum. It’s self-defined and self-regulated. Today, I’m sharing how I think about selling out from not for sale to name your price.

Choose your level of selling out

No one talks about sell outs anymore. Maybe that’s because all jobs have been collapsed into the Amazon-ChatGPT-Military Industrial Complex and we’re all sell outs now. Life on earth is too expensive not to sell out, right? I need my green juice and my backyard renovation and a nice big check from INSERT-NAME-HERE would solve all my problems.

Some of us have elected not to participate in that system…or at least, we want to go down fighting for something else. The idea of “selling out” is still relevant for us. We don’t want to be for sale and we’re discerning about who we sell to.

Having said that, I invite you to release the preconception that all selling out is bad, and instead, consider how much you open up your work to be sold, and to whom.

To help us parse this out, I give you my sell out spectrum.

Level 1: Not for sale

The only two routes to being not-for-sale are being born into money or being willing to live without money.

I’m putting it on the spectrum just for comparison, but it’s not much of a choice to operate in this category, because most of us like having housing and food we didn’t have to dig out of the trash. As nice as it would be for us all to be not-for-sale, it’s not very practical today.

Level 2: People like you

The reader-funded movement fits in here. Selling to individuals, to consumers, to people you know and people you’d like to know is Level 2 selling out. You’re selling something, but it’s to your audience.

Now you might think that this is a universally accepted level of selling out. NOT SO as The Flytrap founders lamented last week when the “paywall police” came after them. Hats off to them for blowing that comment up on social media because I do think we need to shame readers who don’t get it more often. What’s the alternative? We’re nearly at the bottom of the sell out spectrum right now! Below this is journalism not existing.

Anil Dash talked about how dark this got at Movable Type when they asked their existing base to pay for their blogging tool.

“All we had done was ask people to buy an app and now we were getting death threats.” —Anil Dash, What was selling out (2023)

Get comfortable with this feeling, because someone will always be pissed at you. It’s never gonna make logical sense so you have to decide why you think your level of selling out is acceptable to you and to you alone.

Level 3: Corporations that seem ok

Now, we’re adding in corporations, organizations and nonprofits.

In practice, selling at this level looks like getting sponsorships, co-producing events, offering institutional subscriptions, speaking at branded conferences, and syndicating your work to a bigger publisher—all with companies you deem to be good enough.

Level 3 sell outs are willing to play ball with corporations, but they have limits about who they’ll take cash from. Maybe you’d gladly take a sponsorship from a regional hospitality group but you’re not going to advertise Palantir’s new neighborhood watch app. There’s a whole range of acceptability in here, and you have to decide your own rules, usually with consideration to your editorial focus and what’s relevant for your audience.

The thing to be careful with here is relationship capital. When you start repping brands, even just as ads in your blog or newsletter, you lend your credibility to them. That’s why Level 3 selling out should still be companies you’re ok saying out loud that you’re associated with.

Another example on this level is taking big grants and donations from philanthropists. Sure, philanthropy is funded by billionaires, but what’s the downside to taking their money every once in a while? As long as you don’t become dependent on this as your only income stream, it’s a fairly well trodden way to get some startup or growth cash, without much—if any—measurable harm.

Level 4: Best not to ask too many questions

If your revenue target is fairly high, you can end up as a Level 4 sell out. Now things are getting hairy.

Level 4 means you’re taking money from entities who are probably doing some bad things. Think influencers going on a brand trip with Shein or Chappell Roan doing a Target commercial. Questionable corporations with a ton of very public crimes, but to the mainstream consumer, is doing a deal with them going to hurt their image of you? Probably not.

I’d also put seeking private investment in this category, though you could shift that up or down a level depending on who the investors are and what you think their motives are beyond money.

The more you wade into this category, the harder it becomes to avoid Level 5, because if you’re going to work with Target, why not just work with Lockheed Martin?

Sam Altman’s thinking exactly.

Level 5: Name your price

The ultimate sell out tier. People at Level 5 have no discernment of who they take money from. They will take checks from anyone. If Taco Bell wants their logo tattooed on my body, I’m in…for a price. It’s $10M if you’re listening, Taco Bell.

Call Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper recently said she turned down an $8M dollar deal because she “didn't believe in putting my face next to it.” Even the people whose names appear on the wikipedia page for selling out have their limits.

None of us are Level 5 sell outs. This is Bari Weiss territory.

You’re never gonna stay at one level of selling out

Being alive in our current time mandates that you adapt your sell out limits. In seasons where you’re doing great, you may drop to Level 1 or 2. In seasons where a dictator is fucking everything up, you may rise up to Level 4 just to make it work.

I don’t need to caution you against selling out. In fact, many journalists could stand to sell out just a touch more, if only for self-preservation. You should unapologetically paywall when you need to, ask for contributions anytime you want, and if getting a little cash from Google or the Knight Foundation every once in a while helps you keep the lights on, I think you should take that too.

Everyone thinks everyone else is a sell out. It’s not about proving to anyone that you’re not selling out. It’s about knowing—unequivocally—what kind of life you want to lead, what kind of publication you’re building and who you are willing to work with to make it all possible.