failing to change the world
Dec. 12th, 2022 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitYesterday on Medium, Newton Schottelkotte (with editing by Tal Minear and Wil Williams) published Who's Afraid of Alex J. Newall?: The Layoffs, Lapses, and Lessons of Rusty Quill.
It's a disheartening and important read for fans of The Magnus Archives and other RQ shows.
RQ has always presented itself as a company dedicated to making podcasting, and the world, a bit better. In particular, RQ said it wanted to foster opportunities for new talent, for people with ideas but without experience and connections.
That doesn't seem to be what they've done. Schottelkotte's piece, based on interviews with present and former RQ staff and creators from RQ's network shows, plausibly shows RQ's business practices as a mix of incompetence and greed. Predatory contracts, misuse of NDAs and non-disparagement clauses, ridiculously bad accounting, communication so poor it seems actively hostile: it's all here. Far from creating opportunities for podcast creators, RQ has shut them out of interaction with other distributors and platforms, locked them into bad contracts, and skimmed outrageous percentages of their income.
I've been uncomfortable with what I've heard of RQ's business practices for a long time, and the recent layoffs made it worse. Even before that, I couldn't help wondering why so many people who'd been with RQ for a very long time didn't seem to want to keep working with them once their shows ended.
I didn't pledge to the Magnus Protocols Kickstarter because I had so many doubts. And now, I think I need to end my Patron support of RQ as well. (I almost did that a few months ago when the layoffs were first announced, but I waited because I didn't want to believe RQ could actually be that unethical.) It makes me really sad.
I'll probably still listen to the Magnus Protocols. I mean, I'm also still on Twitter. But, just as I'm trying to make my Twitter presence unprofitable for Elon Musk, I don't want to contribute financially to RQ any more than I can help.
I'm still hoping they can get their shit under control and do better. But they don't get more of my money until they do.
ETA: Rusty Quill's public response is here. Thanks torydra_wong for the link!
At this point I don't know what to believe. I've seen companies lie through their teeth against whistleblowers; I've also seen people and organizations (for instance, every trans person who's at all a public figure, and every organization that supports us) smeared via selective quoting, misinterpretation, anonymous sources, and bad-faith, willful misinterpretation. I hate to think someone would smear RQ just for profit or a grudge, but I know it happens. I also hate to think I would be one of those fans who denies accusations of wrongdoing by their beloved content-maker regardless of the evidence.
I guess what I would like to see is some genuine disclosure and transparency. Right now it's Schottelkotte's unsupported word (the sources are unverifiable because anonymous) vs. RQ's unsupported word (the actual policies and documents are undisclosed). What a fucking mess.
If the accusations of exploitation and predatory contracts turns out to be untrue, RQ really needs to learn some lessons from this about how to communicate, both internally and with fans.
It's a disheartening and important read for fans of The Magnus Archives and other RQ shows.
RQ has always presented itself as a company dedicated to making podcasting, and the world, a bit better. In particular, RQ said it wanted to foster opportunities for new talent, for people with ideas but without experience and connections.
That doesn't seem to be what they've done. Schottelkotte's piece, based on interviews with present and former RQ staff and creators from RQ's network shows, plausibly shows RQ's business practices as a mix of incompetence and greed. Predatory contracts, misuse of NDAs and non-disparagement clauses, ridiculously bad accounting, communication so poor it seems actively hostile: it's all here. Far from creating opportunities for podcast creators, RQ has shut them out of interaction with other distributors and platforms, locked them into bad contracts, and skimmed outrageous percentages of their income.
I've been uncomfortable with what I've heard of RQ's business practices for a long time, and the recent layoffs made it worse. Even before that, I couldn't help wondering why so many people who'd been with RQ for a very long time didn't seem to want to keep working with them once their shows ended.
I didn't pledge to the Magnus Protocols Kickstarter because I had so many doubts. And now, I think I need to end my Patron support of RQ as well. (I almost did that a few months ago when the layoffs were first announced, but I waited because I didn't want to believe RQ could actually be that unethical.) It makes me really sad.
I'll probably still listen to the Magnus Protocols. I mean, I'm also still on Twitter. But, just as I'm trying to make my Twitter presence unprofitable for Elon Musk, I don't want to contribute financially to RQ any more than I can help.
I'm still hoping they can get their shit under control and do better. But they don't get more of my money until they do.
ETA: Rusty Quill's public response is here. Thanks to
rydra_wong for the link! At this point I don't know what to believe. I've seen companies lie through their teeth against whistleblowers; I've also seen people and organizations (for instance, every trans person who's at all a public figure, and every organization that supports us) smeared via selective quoting, misinterpretation, anonymous sources, and bad-faith, willful misinterpretation. I hate to think someone would smear RQ just for profit or a grudge, but I know it happens. I also hate to think I would be one of those fans who denies accusations of wrongdoing by their beloved content-maker regardless of the evidence.
I guess what I would like to see is some genuine disclosure and transparency. Right now it's Schottelkotte's unsupported word (the sources are unverifiable because anonymous) vs. RQ's unsupported word (the actual policies and documents are undisclosed). What a fucking mess.
If the accusations of exploitation and predatory contracts turns out to be untrue, RQ really needs to learn some lessons from this about how to communicate, both internally and with fans.
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Date: 2022-12-13 08:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-13 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-13 12:27 pm (UTC)I don't like that the author didn't mention being marketing director for another podcast company until they were called on it, at least. Some of the current RQ network shows have commented and said that they're not happy being spoken for and not contacted, but also Ben Meredith retweeted it without comment. Some of the facts don't match up to me, but a lot of it seems plausible, and it's not news to me that they rely on fan or underpaid labour.
I don't like that they went "I heard the Discord was modded by volunteers, but I don't know if this was true, but I'm mentioning it anyway because it supports my point" (paraphrased), when surely it wouldn't be too hard to verify that or even find some of the mods and talk to them? Maybe I'm biased because I'm in those fannish circles in the first place.
It seems written emotively, in a way that means I'm going to need to take another read of it when I have the mental energy, to try and dissect what's underneath. (I'm also trying to ignore my annoyance at their picking TMA character names for their anonymous sources.)
Sorry for the ramble, I'm just still trying to dissect what I think about the whole thing.
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Date: 2022-12-13 07:24 pm (UTC)especially the CMO being shit
The only surprising thing about the CMO is that he's still, somehow, against all reason, employed by RQ. I genuinely don't understand that.
I don't like that the author didn't mention being marketing director for another podcast company until they were called on it, at least.
Eh, I'm not as bothered by this as some are. They should have disclosed, but I think it's more likely that they assumed people knew than that they were attempting to conceal something that is publicly known. I mean, I do think it explains some of the weirdness of the tone, but I don't see how it affects the substance of the piece.
Some of the current RQ network shows have commented and said that they're not happy being spoken for and not contacted, but also Ben Meredith retweeted it without comment
I'm not sure how to take what the current networks shows are saying, given that per the article they're contractually obliged to say nice things about Rusty Quill! But then again, there are folks I think are serious, thoughtful people who care about justice and who still work for RQ (I'm thinking particularly of Helen here). But then again on the other side, Anil (someone else who always struck me as conscientious) apparently doesn't work there as Compliance Officer anymore, although presumably for contractual reasons nothing's been said about it. And Ben, whose retweet I think has to be read as endorsing the article, seemed to get as far away from RQ as he could, as fast as he could.
The thing is, while I've seen some defenses of RQ (such as April's tweet a few hours ago), they've largely been "Alex isn't evil, RQ helped with my career." What I haven't seen and would really like to is "No, RQ contracts aren't like that. Here's the cut we actually take. Here's how our NDAs and non-disparagement clauses actually work. Here's what we pay our staff, and here's where the money we get from ads, Patreon, etc. goes." RQ has needed more transparency for a long time, and they really, really need it now. Secretiveness makes these charges look true, whether they are or not, and that's a PR disaster.
"I heard the Discord was modded by volunteers, but I don't know if this was true, but I'm mentioning it anyway because it supports my point" (paraphrased)
I read that bit of the article differently. The use of volunteer mods isn't a point under dispute; RQ's been open about that. When Schottelkotte writes "it's said among fans," I took that to refer to the claim that these volunteers were the ONLY thing keeping the Discord usable, or in other words the claim that RQ itself wasn't doing enough. But regardless, it's relatively trivial compared to the main points of the article, and probably shouldn't have been included. (Or if Schottelkotte really thought it necessary to talk about volunteer labor etc., and I can see why they might, they should have properly researched and explained that bit too. Not shoved it in as an afterthought.)
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Date: 2022-12-13 08:47 pm (UTC)Yeah. Very much. And it would be worth knowing what's standard in contracts and what isn't.
The major issue seems to be that they're taking an unusually large cut, allegedly in return for promises of support and promotion which are not materializing.
Also if someone did in fact yell at Maddy for posting that she'd been laid off, they need firing.
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Date: 2022-12-14 08:05 pm (UTC)It's just complicated, in a way that probably won't ever be solved unless RQ releases more information than I think they're likely to. I know Schottelkotte said they were planning article follow-up, so maybe something will come of that, I don't know.
And I truly have no clue why the CMO is still there. The parts that mentioned him were the most easily believable parts to me, just because I already had a poor impression of him.
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Date: 2022-12-13 02:31 pm (UTC)There's a lot of stuff which I suspect is attributable to RQ's fandom suddenly exploding in size, for example the stuff with the Discord. If you're making podcasts in a blanket tent and have a tiny community of fans, it doesn't seem weird to have a few fans help out with modding. But then the whole thing explodes in size and you end up with a situation where the Discord depends on multiple people doing large amounts of gruelling work for free, and collapses when they (very reasonably) say "hey, we should be getting paid for this".
And you've also had the explosion in size (and presumably income) being followed by a cliff-edge drop after the end of Magnus, with none of their other potential candidate podcasts successfully picking up the slack. With that and the UK economy cratering, does not surprise me if they overextended themselves and landed in a financial hole, thus ending up laying people off.
However, none of this excuses the fact that they've handled shit BADLY.
And then stuff like predatory contracts just seems unconscionable.
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Date: 2022-12-13 07:44 pm (UTC)I do think they should have disclosed, but given that it's public information and not something Schottelkotte was trying to hide (as opposed to, say, TERF groups getting their funding from right-wing foundations, which they make every effort to conceal so they can pretend to be feminists), it doesn't raise huge red flags for me.
There's a lot of stuff which I suspect is attributable to RQ's fandom suddenly exploding in size
Yeah. I think a lot more of the problem is likely down to inexperience/incompetence/surprise than to malice. (Apart from the level of malice that's built into capitalism.) There doesn't seem to be anybody in RQ who actually knows how to run a business--and, as someone who works in a non-profit retail co-op and has seen some shit, I think the first step in knowing how to run an ethical business is knowing how to run a business at all.
On the other hand, RQ started getting big around, oh, S2 of Magnus? Even before the absolute explosion post-S4. So they've had a lot of time to work on solutions, especially since they supposedly have a COO and a CMO who aren't involved in the creative side and just run the organization.
being followed by a cliff-edge drop after the end of Magnus, with none of their other potential candidate podcasts successfully picking up the slack
I would love to know the inside story of what the hell happened there. How did RQ get to the end of an astoundingly successful show and not have anything new lined up? How did it take over a year before they even announced any new programs, and most of another year to start releasing them? Magnus would have been a hard act to follow in any case, but--as a complete ignorant outsider to this world--it seems to me that the minute Magnus started becoming a hit, someone should have been hired to be RQ's creative director, and their only job would have been finding new material. I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that Alex just didn't want to hand that over to someone else, even though he was already basically co-writing Magnus, producing and directing Magnus, acting in Magnus, editing Magnus, GM-ing and doing various other things for RQG, etc.
the fact that they've handled shit BADLY
They have such a knack for turning problems into disasters. Not on the creative side (though I haven't listened to any of the new programs, so I don't know how good they are) but on the business and marketing side, without fail.
And I grumpily note that they didn't do a charity livestream this year. They failed to meet their goal last year, which must have been depressing, but I think it would have been good in all kinds of ways if they had done a scaled-back version this year with a more reasonable goal. A back to their roots kind of thing. I wonder how much of the decision not to was the awareness that most of the people fans wanted to see, wouldn't participate.
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Date: 2022-12-13 08:46 pm (UTC)Yeah. Did they try to get new originals lined up and have things fall through/not work out, or just not do anything, or what? Because they knew the potential cliff-edge was coming; Alex mentions it in one of the Q&As, I think.
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Date: 2022-12-13 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-13 10:05 pm (UTC)It feels like RQ wants to pretend that all the layoffs and so on are back of the house stuff that doesn't affect the fans. But RQ has always blurred back and front of house, it's always both brought in its editing and production staff as performers AND fostered a parasocial fan relationship via things like the Twitch streams. So it can't assume that fans won't care when the head of video leaves, not when the head of video also was the face of RQ on Twitch, 4 hours a week, for a year and a half.
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Date: 2022-12-13 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-13 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-14 09:08 am (UTC)Yeah, it just seems dumb. Have a nice little announcement saying "Mike's moving on, we wish him well with [new job], here's what's going to be happening with RQ Streams". Not saying anything makes it look shady regardless of what actually happened.
ETA: I think it's fair to say that if their intra-company communication is as bad as their outwards-facing communication, that's certainly a problem.
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Date: 2022-12-14 12:13 pm (UTC)Or, speculating randomly: I wonder if it's "great at running a business when it's 5 people, don't realize the same things won't work when it's 100 people".
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Date: 2022-12-13 08:11 pm (UTC)An observation has been made to me that there’s a very good chance that the list on Kickstarter of stretch goal guest writers may be the totality of the people in the audio fiction indie world that have still not had an experience with Rusty Quill.
Wait, what?
Because they're all writers on shows ON THE RQ NETWORK (with the partial exception of Sasha Sienna, and he did write the What The Ghost eps). Like. They have by definition had experience with Rusty Quill.
https://twitter.com/TheRustyQuill/status/1597983496085151745
My head is tilted very sideways. That is just a weirdly nonsensical quote.
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Date: 2022-12-13 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-13 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-13 10:18 pm (UTC)I have no idea who or what to believe now. I wish I knew more about contracts and what the industry standards are, so that I could judge better.
I want to believe RQ, but I also don't want to ignore accusations of serious misconduct because I'm a fan of something.
And yet, in other contexts I've seen people's work and characters defamed by out-of-context quotes and anonymous insinuations. (I'm thinking particularly of trans people and cis allies smeared by TERFs.) I know it's easy to do.
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Date: 2022-12-13 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-13 10:36 pm (UTC)ETA: I think my position at this point, until/unless more facts come to light, is going to be that RQ is perhaps not quite as bad at Schottelkotte paints them to be, but nowhere near as good as they claim or as I wanted them to be.
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Date: 2022-12-13 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-14 04:05 pm (UTC)Pretty unambiguous from what we knew already, IMHO: they ended up in a financial hole, leading to laying off people working on some of the new shows, and starting The Magnus Protocol in an attempt to bring in a lot of money quickly (N.B. I think Jonny in particular wouldn't be working on it if he didn't feel they could do something really good and interesting with it, so this doesn't mean it isn't going to be worthwhile or that they're abandoning artistic integrity, but clearly part of the impetus to do it now is oh shit RQ needs money if it's not going to collapse).
Debatable: how badly they handled layoffs. I stand by my position that if anyone actually yelled at Maddy (or anyone else) they should be fired.
Unknown: did they support the new shows enough? Could they have given them more time to build an audience? Are they potentially going to be continuing work on some of them, or are they just cancelled?
Also, how much was ending up in that hole was down to their failure to plan/miscalculation/other form of cock-up, versus the general UK economic disaster?
Pretty unambiguous: contracts with network shows give them a higher than average cut of the take, in return for various kinds of support and promotion.
Unclear: are network shows actually getting the support and promotion? Is it a good deal for them?
Given the very high number of writers from network shows who've signed up as stretch goal writers for Magnus Protocol, that does suggest that they're not all out there going "fucking hell, never want to work with RQ again".
Post from Harlan of Malevolent:
https://www.tumblr.com/malevolentcast/703493906802868224/you-probably-already-know-about-this-but-an