Dispatch Lite: The Boomers vs. Jen Gerson
The danger of a subscriber-based model is audience capture: we have an economic incentive to feed you only the kinds of opinions we think you want to hear. No, thanks.
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Enjoy the weekly dispatch meeting!
It's come to the attention of several of the editors at The Line that some of you Boomers are mad at us. Or, more specifically, you're mad at co-founder Jen Gerson who popped up a particularly scathing screed about the housing market earlier this week.
To wit:
"Our Boomer got his and that's what matters. We have an entire government apparatus set up to protect that guy. The guy with the money and the guy who votes. The rich-on-paper people are happy, and as long as everybody gets a seat somewhere on this pyramid, then everybody else should be happy too."
We will admit that Gerson didn't intend this column to come across as an anti-Boomer harangue. She intended it as an anti-government-housing-policy-that-favours-boomers-over-young-people rant, but we can understand why some of our more mature readers took umbrage. We would say we were sorry but...we're mostly not. A few points:
Firstly, when we talk about macroeconomics and intergenerational equity issues, we are emphatically not talking about individuals. Nobody born between the years 1946 and 1964 is personally, individually morally culpable for the state of the housing market, or the economy, or climate change or any other tragedy of the commons.
If you bought a $40,000 house in the '80s, you couldn't possibly have known that that purchase would eventually lead to a six-figure real estate portfolio by 2020: you took a risk on the economy as it existed at the time, even struggling through a rough patch of high interest rates, and that risk paid off. No Millennial would have done any differently had we been in your position.
But, let’s be honest, if you are a Canadian Boomer, you were probably born in a country that hadn't been bombed to the ground just before an historic economic boom so grand that it allowed unprecedented investment in your health, education, development and well being.
That doesn't mean you didn't also work hard, and suffer setbacks, as all humans must do over the course of a lifetime. Some of you made bad decisions, and some of you were unlucky, certainly. The bell curve tolls for us all. But you did get to play the game of life during a particularly fortuitous period of history. That period is now ending and the currents of history aren't going to be as kind to your kids as they were to you (although let's not kid ourselves. Canadian Millennials and Zers don't have it so bad in the greater scheme of things, either.) Recognizing this — let's call it Boomer privilege — doesn't cost you anything. It doesn't hurt you. It’s not a personal attack.
What we do find fascinating is the Boomers among our readership who take discussions about intergenerational equity and demographic advantage very, very personally. Forgive us for playing pop psychologist, but it almost feels like some of you park so much of your worth as human beings into your ability to earn wealth that to have someone point out that this wealth accumulation was helped by macroeconomic factors over which you had no control — luck, essentially — seems to be read as an attack on your sense of self, purpose, and identity. (Is this why so many of you struggle to retire? Is there a frisson of guilty conscience at play?)
That is ... your issue. Being lucky isn't an indictment of your character. We assume all of our Line subscribers are genuinely good people who knit little paw mittens for orphaned cats, okay? Otherwise, why else would you be here?
Lastly, although we gained more subscribers than we lost as a result of that column, we did lose a few of you.
You know what? That's fine. We aren't going to be everybody's cup of tea, and if you don't value us, you are under no obligation to pitch in to keep us rolling. We've talked before about the perils of different kinds of funding models for media: every type of model presents particular perils to independence and integrity.
The danger of a subscriber-based model is audience capture: we have an economic incentive to feed you only the kinds of opinions that we know via our internal metrics that you want from us. The temptation is to become increasingly narrow and extreme in order to cater to the tastes of our paying subscribers. If you find yourself only agreeing with an outlet, never being challenged by them, that's a warning sign that you've been ensnared by an ideological bubble.
We can't allow ourselves to fall into that trap, and that means we have to be willing to say "thank you and goodbye" to subscribers who decide to take their ball and go home because they're angry at what we write. Those of you who value being challenged and even offended will stick around, and we will love you that much more for it.
Round Up:
Okay, Line readers. That’s it for this week. Happy long weekend, especially for those observing a religious holiday — get those feasts in (even if you have to wait for dark). We will be taking Monday off, but we’ll be back with you bright and early Tuesday morning. Take care.
The Line is Canada’s last, best hope for irreverent commentary. We reject bullshit. We love lively writing. Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Follow us on Twitter @the_lineca. Fight with us on Facebook. Pitch us something: lineeditor@protonmail.com
I’m a boomer who has lost and rebuilt my net worth 3 times with real estate. Luck has always played a role, both good and bad. Loved the article.
I like your irreverent commentary. I dislike sarcasm. Sometimes you sound like you are a bit full of yourself. But, because the work you do is necessary and you do it well, I decided to become a paid subscriber. I would have subscribed earlier, but I was very repelled by your use of the f- - - expletive.
So, I made the big leap - $ 5.00 a month.
Keeping my options open should you continue to use that language.
You can do better, easily.