One of the biggest stories last week was Stephen Crowder's Stop Big Con announcement.
The Daily Wire's response.
Candace Owens then came on this show, gave her response.
Stephen Crowder released a video explaining his response to their response.
And now we have an opportunity to hear Stephen Crowder's side of everything.
And this is an important story.
A lot of people have asked me, why does this matter?
It's drama between media companies.
And I think the questions being asked right now could determine the shape of independent, alternative, anti-establishment, and corporate media in general moving forward.
Is it going to more take the shape of the traditional Hollywood system, but with better views?
Or is it going to be a new system that makes sure the individuals are empowered and can maintain themselves through the issues of censorship and run their own companies after any contracts change?
There's a lot of questions here more than just that.
And so joining us tonight to talk about all of this is, of course, We've got Steven Crowder.
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Okay, I was going to say, because you're coming in a little bit hot in my ears when you were saying OG, which I'm really happy to hear, but it was loud.
No, I remember I was with Maker, and then it kind of morphed into something where, you know, the whole idea, right, was they were going to help protect you, get better advertising rates, and then, you know, I said some things like, hey, you know, we just, we can't be repping you anymore.
They turned into Studio something, I think they got purchased by Disney.
Louder with Crowder, Stop Big Con, stay in Mug Club, or join anew, enter your email below.
So let's get started and talk about, from the beginning, most people are familiar with the story.
I want to make sure, as we get this started, I want to make sure there's important contextual understanding.
People have asked why it's so important that, and why is everybody interested in the story?
Why have we talked about it so much?
First, I will say I'm biased.
I worked for big corporations.
I've run my own company.
I have this passion for how the media companies operate, how I operate my media company, my vision for the future.
And I know so much about this.
It's something I care about.
When I hear about it, I'm just driven to want to understand more, talk about it, share these ideas.
But it's more than just that.
I want to make sure that my bias is clear.
It's that I for one have taken issue with the establishment media, the traditional media systems, how they operate with contracts and so trying to build something different.
I see what Crowder announced and what he's talking about and I ideologically agree.
So this conversation could change the shape of how media moves forward as the corporate media system is dying.
Firing people, laying people off, and an independent ecosystem is emerging with these networks, which form is it going to take?
It could go completely corporate, it could go completely independent, it could be a mix of both, but this is a conversation that is extremely important moving forward, so we're hanging out with Steven Crowder and Gerald, of course, to talk about all this.
Well, first off, let me set something up off the bat.
I want to make sure that everyone here knows, like, I know that you guys have made very clear that you're monetized on YouTube because you believe that you can fight against big tech by sort of operating, to some degree, within the rules, but you've been very transparent about it.
And so I don't want you to think that that is at all the same as what I have a problem with.
And I mean, we can go back to a few things.
Look, it really comes down to what's right.
It really comes down to what the truth is.
And this is something that's been a long time coming.
Gerald actually came on as CEO because we're being batted around so long.
This is years and years in the making.
I get the point with corporate media.
The issue that I have with many in the conservative side of this sphere is the fundamental misleading and dishonesty.
That's what I have a problem with.
And you see that here as a story took place.
Kind of a started right where We released this video.
We didn't, and it was just by design, didn't name names because there could be a litany of contracts that are similar to this.
There's about, you know, four or five, I would say we have four or five offers, and then there are other investors who come into the space who just want to dump in a whole bunch of money.
Daily Wire here outed themselves.
And I understand that people are saying, well, people knew who it was.
Well, that's because some of the people who were under those contracts said, yeah, I recognize those contracts.
And Candace said, on this show, I recognize the terms from my contract.
Here's the thing.
I said this is wrong.
Penalizing conservatives, and I believe this to my absolute core, penalizing conservatives on behalf of big tech while taking money from people who are paying you, investing in you, to fight big tech.
That is what they're investing in.
That is what Mug Club is investing in.
That's what subscribers are investing in.
While simultaneously penalizing conservatives is fundamentally wrong.
I had that conversation and said, look, just please give me your word you're not going to be doing this with other people who, as you well know, when you start in this industry, don't know better.
Immediately after that, the conversation was, Crowder is making a big deal as a dick about money.
Basketball money.
$50 million a year was the implication, which you know is not true.
People aren't saying that now.
That's not what people have a problem with.
What people have a problem with, I understand, is the idea of a phone call.
And now the narrative has shifted to betrayal of a friend.
That's what people want to say.
I say less straw.
I say this is something that I've watched, experienced for years, tried to give every possible out to do the right thing, and have tried to do the right thing in the way that we run our own business.
Saw the gaslighting, the bully tactics that take place behind the scenes of other creators, and knew it wouldn't be myself.
So now the narrative shifts to, how could you record a phone call, betray a friend?
It was just about money.
It was just, this is just business.
And now it's, hey, we're really good friends.
Well, which is it?
I mean, you have to, you kind of have to pick a lane, right?
Are we good friends?
Are you sending out a boilerplate contract that you demand of everybody according to what they said?
I have 110% penalties on behalf of big tech. And the issue with that is that it's dishonest. It's
a tactic of the left. It's a tactic, the same kind of tactic that you see from the
left, the gaslighting, where if you, let me ask you this.
Then another 20%, I don't remember the numbers, for Facebook, for Spotify, but there's also another penalty if your sponsors get boycotted.
There's also another penalty if you don't agree to 10%, if you deny 10% of the sponsors, which is probably like you, we probably accept one out of five sponsors.
But let me just kinda go through this timeline really quickly.
Before we get to that, before we get to the financing stuff, let me ask you this.
If someone publicly was going, and by the way, I'm not going to be doing the personal stuff.
I'm not going to be coming in here calling anybody a bitch, right?
Sending out hatchet people.
I understand why Candace was mad.
Honestly, I understand why she was mad.
I'd probably be mad too.
So I don't think it gives you an excuse to go and talk the way like every girl does who gets their husband into a fight at a bar, but I understand why she was upset.
If you had the ability, if someone was going out saying, hey, you're a difficult person who only cares about the money, and that you're a bitch, and you had the opportunity to clear it in because it was verifiably untrue, which now no one is arguing, would you do it?
How else would people switch from, it was about a $50 million salary, to, oh, recording a phone call?
Do we allow it when James O'Keefe does it?
Is it only when corruption is on the side of the left?
And here's the issue.
I'll tell you who this hurts.
The dishonesty.
I'm not just saying, Daily Wire, this is about the entire movement as a whole.
There are a lot of practices that go on, and it hurts the sponsors, hurts the creators, hurts the viewers, hurts the investors.
And by investors, with us, you know, it's entirely Mug Club.
It's people who pay to subscribe.
We don't make a dime off of YouTube.
We haven't for many years.
And it hurts, if you believe what we say, we believe the movement in the country as a whole.
So, that right there, right, is fundamentally disappointing.
And the gaslighting still keeps taking place.
Candace Owens on this show said, Um, hey, we all follow the same guidelines, right?
Crowder does, too.
That's verifiably false.
And I'll say, you can publicly audit this.
We've had four strikes, right, in the last, since May, I think, 2021 to October 2022.
One was the Mackay Bryant.
One was a sketch with Alex Jones.
That one's guilty.
One was him quoting the CDC, and by the way, none of this will get you in trouble, because you can say this now, him quoting the CDC, bringing up the CDC numbers on flu deaths for children versus COVID, and we were saying this is interesting science, right, that COVID kills more senior citizens, but for some reason is significantly less lethal to young people, to infants.
That science is accepted now, so you won't get a strike, but that was one of the strikes.
The other was when we had Carrie Lake on in a gubernatorial election.
Four, how many have taken place from Daily Wire?
Yes.
Zero.
Now here's the thing.
I'm not saying it's a badge of honor.
I'm not saying that it's a badge of honor to be suspended.
If they came out and said, look, look, we demand, as Jeremy said in his 55 minute video, we demand that all of our creators follow these rules that YouTube and Facebook set through punitive practices in mandating of our creators to do so And Crowder's a little bit more of a rebel.
You know what?
He's been banned for four times.
And that's just, that's not the same kind of, that's not a problem.
The problem is saying that we all follow the same rules because here's, so that's all publicly verifiable.
Now I could tell you, I could tell you guys that behind the scenes, had many conversations with senior YouTube executives who say, you know, we might be able to get you re-monetized if you kind of play ball like.
He's got daily wire and insert other people here.
I could tell you that, but would you believe me?
I would have to provide receipts.
I could tell you that that takes place.
That hurts the creators out there who end up hitting a glass ceiling that has set the sandbox that has mandated their creators.
Very important context to this is, obviously after you put out the first video, I've talked to a bunch of my friends and they said, look, you know, Daily Wire's trying to run a business.
If he gets banned off YouTube, how are they going to sell ads?
How are they going to do the sponsorships?
His views are gone.
And I've seen people tweet, all of Crowder's views come from YouTube anyway, so he'd basically be unmonetizable if he was banned.
And then I point out, first of all, that's just categorically false.
The contract you were offered says Facebook, Apple, I said YouTube, Apple, Facebook, Spotify, but it didn't mention any of your views from any other platforms.
And there's Google Podcasts.
They get views.
I know the numbers.
Obviously, it's not the same as Apple, but it's interesting to me that for a lot of people, like Dan Bongino, for instance, had more subscribers on Rumble than YouTube.
It's interesting, then, that their attitude is, if you're banned from YouTube, it's a 20% fee reduction, which you mentioned includes your staff salary.
I want to make sure this point is made clear for everybody.
This is a very important part of the argument when I heard it.
If the point is you can't sell ads or build an audience because YouTube banned you and that's it, but you're getting 85% or more views on Rumble, the question is why no penalty for getting banned from Rumble?
Why is Rumble not a consideration in the contract at all?
And why don't they simply say comparable views instead of the platform?
Like, if for every million views per day you lose, we dock you... I can answer that question exactly.
In other words, there are plenty of options out there, right?
He can tell you.
I get excited when I walk out and I go, hey, how many people are tuning in live on YouTube?
How many on Rumble?
They go, oh, it's tipped.
There are more people on Rumble.
Sure, I've been on YouTube for a long time, since 2006, but it doesn't mean that they don't change, right?
And the issue is I think it's a great thing to use these platforms.
There's a huge difference, by the way, you know, between being monetized And being on the platform.
But ultimately, if we believe what we say, we have to be trying to get to the point where we know that fast forward five years, you can't speak the truth on YouTube, certainly not if you want to be monetized.
But there's this jockeying for position with people who they see as competition and the issue here that I've always made clear is the locking in of these punitive contracts that mandate and enforce big tech policies and guidelines as a matter of business.
And that hurts creators.
And the same thing, by the way, when we're talking about misleading practices with sponsors.
There's no problem, right?
And this is all publicly verifiable.
I want you guys to be able to audit this so that there don't have to be as many receipts provided.
You market your channel, right?
I think we probably have some ads running right now, like Spotify, like, hey, if you like this show, tune in on Spotify.
But there's a big difference.
We know that there's a huge problem in our industry of pay to play.
Now, you can do that, that's fine, if you want to grow your numbers.
So pay-to-play means that you can buy views, right?
You can pay-to-play, you can run your video as a pre-roll ad, and people see that number, but really a lot of them are 14-second views, 8-second views, but it still clicks that counter.
The closest apples-to-apples comparison that you could do right now is you could go out and take like, let's say, not this controversy because there's cross-pollination, but Ben Shapiro's a huge show.
Of course he is.
But go take some videos there right now that have a million plays.
Go month after month.
Take a bunch of them.
Look at the likes.
Look at the comments.
Take videos from my channel.
It's a comparable place.
Take them with 800,000, 600,000 plays because we've converted them a lot to Rumble.
Look at the likes, look at the comments.
It's startling because it's a lot easier to buy plays than it is to buy likes and comments.
When you sit down with sponsors and these are hard earned dollars, a lot of them are
mid-sized companies, you run them on this show and they say, yeah, but you know what?
We didn't get our money's worth and this person is the number one show because they go out
and they say that they have these numbers and they set what happens?
They drop those rates across the board, which hurts everybody or they pull out altogether.
Now you can publicly verify that information.
Now I could tell you guys that I've had conversations with sponsors that say, we're not going to
be running in the conservative space because it's just not as effective as we thought it
was or you know what?
And content creators will say, why am I getting these low advertising rates?
Here's the issue.
If you're some kid, and by kid I mean, you know, you could be a 40-year-old with a smaller podcast.
Let's say you get a quarter million plays.
Not as big, but good numbers.
Let's say you get half a million plays.
Good numbers, but they're real.
And you are a conservative, and you're trying to grow this.
And then all of a sudden, your content, YouTube is saying, can't say that.
Can't do that because of the box that's being created by all of these companies and big conservatism.
And then you're trying to make it, right?
You're trying to make it something that is financially solvent.
And you can't because sponsors no longer have faith in this side of the industry.
That is something that hurts those creators.
And this is something that so the creators are hurt, the sponsors are hurt, the viewers are hurt.
Because I just want to finish this one and then any questions you have.
The viewers are hurt, Because they feel isolated.
They feel like their views are not represented, right?
They go, hold on a second.
I'm conservative.
Why are none of the top people saying whatever it is?
X, Y, Z. And the investors are hurt.
And I don't mean billionaires.
In our case, it's people who invest when they sign up for Mug Club.
They are paying us because they say, we know that you're demonetized.
We know that you don't run nearly as many sponsors.
You're very selective.
And we think we are giving you our dollar in faith because we think that you are fighting for us.
Let me give you one final parallel world there.
Imagine if we left the blaze.
And this, again, the issue is that everyone is demanded to sign these exact same contracts.
That's what they said.
They've been very, very clear about that.
It's just business.
Imagine if Mud Club leaves the blaze.
And let's say we come back two, three months.
And we come back, and all of a sudden, I don't talk about vaccines in the way that I used to.
All of a sudden, I don't talk about election integrity like I used to.
All of a sudden, I don't host Carrie Lake in the same way that I used to or host her at all.
And all of a sudden, all the parodies, the sketches, you know, the sweeping epic, like a parody of Saving Private Ryan or There Will Be Blood or Schindler's List, whatever it is, you don't see any—change my mind—you don't see any of those anymore, but you see four or five live reads.
I'd be the definition of a sellout.
And I would be selling out the people who paid for something different.
Only one group of people here is saying, you have to fit into this box.
I'm saying, you got to let some people let the freak flag fly.
I don't care if you want to be monetized or not.
Don't lock people and punish them on behalf of big tech when you claim that you are fighting them.
I think the people who have watched my content consistently know about this.
It was called, some refer to it as ad rights sales, ad rights buying.
Back in the early 2010s, these up-and-coming digital media outlets would sell the rights, what they would do is they would, I'm sorry, they would buy the rights to views.
So let's say you're a company called like, um, uh, bad behavior.com.
And in reality, you only get 30, but they bought the rights Meanwhile, there's some kid who's actually getting 10 million views, right?
And he doesn't get the same advertiser rates because he gets burned.
And then those kids drop out.
Does anyone ever wonder why the burnout rate is so high in this industry?
There are so many good people.
I mean, you can go back to when I was on PJTV in 2009.
People who I worked with.
Good, solid people.
Who, by the way, had skin in the game.
Who had a lot to lose.
And you'll never hear from them again.
They just go, I'm out.
I'm out.
They get disenfranchised.
They get disenchanted.
And that's the issue.
Look, it doesn't affect me.
I'll be fine either way.
But we've always talked about building a bench, and I've always talked about wanting to be able to pass the torch.
It's not possible to do this way.
And by the way, the way you know this is true is right now I have said I don't want to do this.
Again, I've been thinking about this for a long time, trying to work behind the scenes, trying to work within the system, until I realized there's just no interest in doing it that way.
And then you say, okay, is our move—this is why we lose.
Conservatives wonder, what the hell?
What about the midterms?
What the hell happened?
Why do you think?
Why do you think people like Lindsey Graham, like Mitch McConnell, nothing personal against them.
Why do you think that there are people out there and you go, how do they not get voted out?
Why do you think these are our decisions for speaker?
These are our choices.
Why do you think you constantly lose?
Because the people who really do want to be the vanguard at the cutting edge.
They burn out and they leave because they can't compete against it.
I gotta tell you, man, I make this point all the time where I just say, for all the people who are claiming I'm a grifter or I only want money and that I don't really believe the things I'm fighting for, I'm like, it would be so much easier to sell everything, shut it all down and just buy some properties, rent them out and not have to worry about any of this.
The response then from detractors and most people was, holy crap!
And they're imagining Steven Crowder in a big private bank vault diving into a bunch of gold coins.
When in reality, the $50 million included the entire budget for your whole staff, your whole production facility, every production you would have done.
Meaning, you've got to pay, how many employees do you have?
I just want to ask one specific question, because a lot of people are bringing this up, and they're accusing you guys of only exposing them after they turned down your counter offer.
Is that true, or can you add more information to that?
There was the agent, I think my agent, the first, they sent this term sheet.
The agent said, well, if you're talking about 100% ownership, by the way, in perpetuity, forever, meaning, and it's a six-year contract, with no option to negotiate.
They have an option to extend for two years.
Six years, locked in at that rate, and again, right, how do you penalize someone for money that they don't make?
They're not going to lose money on you being demonetized.
Now, I get that I'm a special situation, but they said this is demanded of everybody.
The big con issue is something that I've been running up against and everyone in this industry knows for many, many years.
They just were arrogant enough to out themselves and to put it in writing and to say, we know how to run this business.
We figured it out.
You don't know what you're talking about.
And of course, you know, after that, another last straw was, you know, then going and trying to take Take our social media director, and I only showed you that email because he's willing for me to show you.
Look, we have our people poached all the time.
When you have your ideas stolen and they put more money behind it, not just mine, when you build someone up and someone else comes in and says, hey, we'll offer you more money, they use them for six months and burn them out, I'm sure that's an accident.
I'm sure the people at the top of Daily Wire didn't know when they reached out to someone who was not looking for a job, who loudly and proudly advertises himself as social media director for Latter Earth Crowder.
But I could tell you that on that phone call, they said, we have an entire social media department, right?
I want to dedicate some more time to, starting from the beginning of the context of that story, but I wanted to address something before Luke jumped in.
Thinking about the contract, a four-year contract with an option to renew for two, locking you in at that rate, 12.5, including the entirety of your staff, And it's just business, and I'm kind of like, you know, I hear that.
This is, again, why I care about the subject matter so much.
Running this business and making lots of money, I often say, for a guy like me, growing up in Chicago and being close to the bottom of the totem pole, as an American, which is great for the rest of the world.
I mean, America's awesome.
The poorest person is wealthy compared to everybody else.
But there's a certain point in terms of having things that I could have ever wanted, and it's a very, very low bar.
Once I got hired by Disney, the Disney Fusion, they're paying me $250,000.
I'm staring at money I have no idea what to do with.
Money, money, money, money, this is just a business.
Look, it's not just a business.
And by the way, when you're talking about business, find out what motivates the people you're in business with.
I'm not motivated by money.
That's not what motivates me.
If you look back at the track record in 2009, it was because I wanted to see the system burn, meaning as far as the system that kept conservatives in line.
And I mean the liberal system, but then when you realize that it's on your own side.
I'm not motivated by money.
And by the way, don't leave someone, don't leave someone with nothing to lose.
You know the easiest situation is take the money, shut up.
Second easiest is go bet on yourselves.
You've seen the numbers that we've given you there.
And guess what?
You make more money, you shut up.
The option of say no, And say, look, this is wrong and speak out is significantly harder than any of the other paths.
The two things I want to say is my point on the money was I view you in a similar way that you're ideologically driven.
That if you have the resources to do what you want to do and you're living comfortably and taking care of your family, beyond that, I don't see you as the kind of guy who's like, I don't have an infinity pool and three Ferraris in my garage.
So when they say Crowder is just... What's the infinity pool?
But the question is, if you had the choice between an infinity pool and a young, you know, a talented personality who was going to help change the shape of this country for the better, I think you're going to choose to change the shape of this country for better.
I wanted to make, I got to make a point about, you said in 2009, you, you were like, you realize that the liberal system is holding you back or something to the effect.
And then you eventually realize it's on your side as well.
The difference is right now, at this point in inflection point history, as it relates to right-wing conservative media, I can do something.
I can't change the intelligence agencies.
But you know what, when I ask Kerry Lake on the show, I say, would you disband the FBI?
Yeah, I would.
Boom.
Gone.
Suspended.
I can do something about that.
I can't change the CIA or the FBI.
You're probably more effective with that than I am.
I'm an entertainment guy.
I was a guy telling jokes in clubs, having beer bottles thrown at me when I was 17 years old, voicing, you know, a black bear who was the best friend of an aardvark when I was 12, which is clearly derived from hallucinogenic drugs.
I still remember we were called crazy truthers for calling this out as rationally as we did, saying, hey, the national security state is going to be turned around against you, and it has.
At that time, specifically, we had a discourse that was kind of free and open.
We didn't have algorithms.
People were able to see important messages and videos and talking points and content creators.
Now we're living in a different age.
I wanted to kind of get your point of view.
Some people say you have to keep pushing the Overton window.
Some people say you got to keep playing ball.
Mark Dice is also in the chat.
He just is accusing Ben Shapiro of allegedly paying $135,000 to boost his Facebook posts.
Okay, so the only thing, and this is the thing, this is all done right now.
I'm not saying that I have all the answers, but the first answer, and I've said we won't talk about this again, if someone takes a pledge alongside me, anyone in Big Con, just the only thing that I ask is that you do not punish conservative content creators on behalf of big tech.
That's it.
Start with that.
Let's start with that.
Before we get to everything else, a lot of times people want the entire solution.
Just start with that.
You won't be penalized 25% if you're demonetized on YouTube by the people who are supposed to be fighting for you.
I think DailyWire's got some creative, like, a lot of opportunity on their website, because, like, if all your back catalog was on DailyWire, at no cost to anybody, and they could go into DailyWire, log in, and then I spend 99 cents on a Crowder video, and then that money gets split between you guys.
Well, they're already doing over 300,000 MugClip subscribers day one, right?
Now, the issue here is, let's take me out of it.
Let's say you're starting your own thing, right?
You're trying to come up in this movement and the terms are being set by people on your side behind the scenes where this is the ball that you have to play.
I said, did you take me out of it?
It's not the right fit, which I thought if I don't have a dog in this fight anymore, it won't fall on deaf ears when I say, Hey, it's about the, it's about the next kid.
This can't work.
We can't have a movement.
We can't sell our people out.
And that's how I view it.
Maybe you don't.
They said, this is just a business.
These are the terms.
But there are alternatives.
You don't have to be dependent on YouTube or Facebook.
And you certainly shouldn't make it fundamental to your business model when you're telling people that you're fighting them.
So I wanted to address what you were just saying about these companies playing by the rules.
That's completely my experience with a lot of these different companies, is that big tech is clearly infiltrated by... I mean, look, Alan Bakari, I think it was, got his hands on that Google video where they were crying that Trump won.
This is Google.
I love this.
On my Wikipedia it says Tim Pool maintains that there's a bias in big tech against conservatives or whatever.
They set these terms, these big tech companies, and then what happens is the leftist organizations clearly say the stupidest and craziest things.
You know ChatGPT, the AI bot?
It was, I think, Jack Posobiec who asked it, or he tweeted this out, when asked, did Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow spread COVID misinformation?
It says, no, they didn't.
And it was like, well, they, Did, literally, we know for a fact they did.
And then it goes on and says, well, while they acknowledge some mistakes, no, no, no, the whole machine is skewed in that direction.
What happens then is, big tech company, I shouldn't say big tech, I'm sorry, many of these big conservative outlets, I shouldn't even say necessarily conservative outlets, but many of these companies are just like, we're gonna set the parameters right here because We're going to be within the box.
Is this the problem, and I'm finding why I think Candace was pissed too, is that when we refer to companies doing thing, and what happens is, the company is a hologram.
It doesn't have any availability or any ability to do anything.
So when you're negotiating, for instance, it comes out, Steve and Kraut are negotiating with the Daily Wire, quote.
And that brings all these other Daily Wire employees into it.
They were getting messages, Candace was, Michael knows, on their chats, and they're like, now I'm involved, because it was between you and Jeremy Boring.
Ben Shapiro.
There's actually four owners to The Daily Wire.
Ferris Wilkes and Caleb Robinson, owned by Bent Key Ventures.
So you're only in negotiation with four people.
If we stop saying, YouTube is doing this, we're going to get a lot more accurate in the people.
Well, like I was saying, it's like they send out on YouTube, you know, they send out representatives of conservatives and they're patsies for the higher ups.
But when you get, coming back to you time and time again, you know, if you did what Company X, if you did what Company X, meaning big conservative companies who have meetings with them, if you did that, we might be able to get you remonetized or at least not suspended.
I've never seen John laugh so hard, was we started selling on the website, because socialism is for figs.
It's a play on words.
You may not like it, but people also need to know Che Guevara Executed gays, right?
This is a guy, when you wear a Che Guevara shirt, you're wearing a Hitler who was less successful in being charismatic and duping people.
I'm not saying Hitler was successful, I'm saying he was a genocidal maniac.
So, of course we're mocking him.
YouTube says, well you can't do that, that shirt is hate speech.
It's off the platform.
So what we ended up selling at the Crowder shop was a mystery box.
And I get a call from one of the most senior executives at YouTube, and I go, what?
We know what's in the box.
I was like, I'm thinking someone in Silicon Valley is opening it, like, FIRE!
And so we stopped selling, but that's something that's completely off the platform.
But the point is, right, you need to be, there needs to be someone standing up to these giant organizations.
And when you say, like Jeremy said in his video, well, you know, we only met with Susan Wojcicki once and we were really going in and defending Susan.
I said, OK, hold on a second.
Are you the biggest, most influential, fastest growing conservative network in the world?
Or, did you spend time going in and fighting for the little guy and were completely ineffectual?
You can't have both.
One of those things is true.
The inconsistencies are the issue here, and that's a tactic of the left.
Here's I fully expect them to come out and say, this is a lie, this is a lie, switch the narrative from the phone call, switch the narrative from the money, now that that's gone, probably a hit list like the Vox Adpocalypse, probably get personal, this is why people don't speak out, this is why good people don't run for office, and we shouldn't be doing that on the right.
I want to look at this email that you've shown me.
The Daily Wire tried poaching one of your employees and what would make this significant is if this happened after your negotiations.
Okay, so after you were talking with the Daily Wire about potentially doing a deal, they reach out to your employees, and I'm looking at the email right here saying that they came across the social media manager, hey, they got a great opportunity, join the new counterculture, it says.
They emailed your staff and said, come work for us instead.
That doesn't sound like something a friend would do.
And the only reason I'm showing you that is I'm not going to be showing receipts from third parties who are blameless victims.
Gary said you can show that.
He came right to me and said, hey, look, this came up.
I said, hey, they'll probably offer you more money.
And I'll write you a letter of recommendation.
He said, no, I know you guys want to be monetized.
And the issue that that took place in the conversation might even be in the one that you saw where I said, like, they're like, well, you know, we do have a social media department.
So I got, you know, we do it here.
That was the one thing that we talked about maybe splitting, I think at some point, I said, I have Gary, and he's awesome.
Then after that, we had those conversations about, like, these are the sticking points, right?
And please, like, we also got to figure out a better way to do this because it stifles the movement.
After that, it was, yeah, we're not going to be able to come to any kind of terms.
And that was, for sure, after that conversation, I made one final plea.
One final plea and that called, like, just take me off the table.
Promise me you won't do it to other people.
And the question is, Look, was your understanding when you invest money, when you subscribe, was your understanding that all conservative talent out there, nearly all,
These fees pertain to strikes and bannings on the major big tech platforms, irrespective of your viewership on the alternatives we're all trying to help.
And by the way, there's a huge difference between employees reaching out to you in a company and you fielding it, which happens, versus going to someone who is clearly not available, who was mentioned by name.
Saying, this guy is awesome.
And Gary's hilarious, because he's Russian, he was born and raised in Russia until he was 13, but he seems totally American.
No accent, but then occasionally you realize he'll say something out of context, like I can kill two birds and get stoned or something.
No, and it was always about the terms, and it's stupid to say that this was our plan to get subscribers.
I'm sorry.
I get a little bit pissed off with this because that means that you didn't pay any attention at all to Mug Club Forever.
That was us getting in touch with our subscribers and making sure that whatever home we went to, on our own, with somebody else, we were going to have access to the people that paid for our content.
This was not a plan that was hatched to make sure that we could ride off into freedom and do whatever the hell we wanted with this really great email list.
It sounds like you guys are right on the precipice of creating your own network or your own website where people pay you $10 a month and just get access to that.
Wouldn't it be great if you could link arms with the self-professed, most powerful people on our side who are supposedly fighting for us, but the problem is when they say, we have no interest in doing that, you go, wait, hold on a second, hold on a second, hold on a second.
Here's the good news.
I bring tidings of great joy.
We can get just as many viewers on Rumble as you can on YouTube.
And by the way, stay on YouTube, but just don't punish conservatives for being demonetized.
There are a lot of different terms that you would have to negotiate, and this has been the sticking point from the very beginning, and it kind of goes back to something that you said about Candice getting these questions.
It is just 100%.
You don't start with these terms in the contract.
Again, it was like, oh, it's a term sheet.
Negotiate.
Of course we negotiate.
I've been doing that.
I understand that that is part of the process.
That's what you do in these things.
But if you're going to start there and we say, hey, that's not...
That's not something that should be in this movement.
And you're like, well, we're not coming back to the table.
By the way, after the Ryman, we were expecting them to come back and have changed that and made an offer that we could then start negotiating from.
Everybody else, their production comes out of you.
You knew Stephen well enough to know that he had his own production team and therefore the costs would be borne by him, but everything else was just standard and our apologies for leaving it in there.
Because that was one of the claims that was made.
This is just the standard contract negotiating start point of term sheet that we always give to everybody.
It's like, yeah, but you knew Stephen well enough to know he did all of his production, but then you're saying the rest of that was just standard.
Now, if someone did that with you and said, Tim Pool is a money-grubbing prick, and we offered him basketball money, and someone came out and called you a little bitch, right?
And that literally happened, and you had the ability to say, and you'd seen this happen to other people behind the scenes for years, and you said, that's not going to be me.
You had the ability to prove that it was verifiably false, which no one is arguing.
I want to address what you were saying about would I prove him wrong if I could.
I suppose what happened differently for us... If it was that vitriolic.
If it was that vitriolic.
I didn't Granted, the Daily Wire outed themselves and they said it was because people assumed it was them.
After I had a conversation, my determination, a conversation with the Daily Wire, my determination was, they do business in a way that I don't agree with, but I like that they're doing things that have a cultural impact and a positive.
Thus, I'm gonna build my thing the way I think it's supposed to be, let them make the things they make with the people who agree with being a part of that, and hopefully, even if they're not 100% in the right direction, if it's 1% producing cultural net positive, I'll just have to be the force that pushes it.
100% of my company, we've entered into licensing agreements where people have temporary ability to monetize the subscribers and the content they're in, right?
We still have all the content.
When we left the blades, we still have that because there was a period of time.
The issue there is what we're talking about is penalizing people on behalf of Big Tech.
Was that your impression?
Because that's not the impression that's given.
And you know what?
There are a lot of things that you can get.
And I really want this to be done.
Just pledge that we won't penalize people on behalf of Big Tech.
We can talk about it.
Hey, there are ways to do it with Rumble.
I know you've talked about a decentralized solution to people subscribing, right?
And I think there's good with that.
There are also issues because people have so many different places where they have to pay right now and they kind of want to get one portal.
Hopefully there's a way to figure that out.
Here's what you do.
As far as a contract, if someone is coming in this entire production house, I've been having contracts negotiated, you know, you said you were in SAG 2000.
So I was in since I was 12 years old and had agents negotiating contracts and term sheets.
I know what a term sheet looks like.
Every time we do a live show, by the way, I'll be in Louisville, Kentucky, February 10th.
I think we're adding a show on Thursday.
You can go buy tickets on the website.
Every time I do a live show, there's a term sheet.
And the term sheet is, this is what happens with live shows.
There's a minimum guarantee.
And the minimum guarantee is no matter if five people show up, if it's your dad and your Aunt Tilly, we pay you this, and there's a percentage of the gate.
And if you want more, if you're willing to bet on yourself, you say lower that guarantee And take a higher portion of the gate.
I go in and say, don't give me a guarantee, and I'll just take the gate.
And they sell their drinks, right, they end up making more money, we're giving them less risk.
What you do is, Luke, to answer your question, you can present it if it's a production company where you want them to incur all of the risk, all of the costs, okay, you do a rev split where there's upside for both sides.
Or, some people want security, right, we have 1099s who work at the company, we have employees.
Some people want security, and so they become salaried, and they get health insurance, they get a 401k, you can provide two options You can do a rev split or you can do an employee agreement for people who want to do that.
In this case, they want to do employee type constraints.
And again, none of this matters as far as I can't be clear enough.
I said, take me off the table here.
The issue is entirely the enforcement of punitive practices through mandate at the most powerful company.
But you can do it those ways.
And there are a million ways to skin a cat.
You can make that work.
And that's the way that it's done.
We both know in the liberal cesspool that is Hollywood, where everyone is out trying to screw somebody.
And here's the one thing that I like about, because, look, Rumble tweeted out, like, hey, we offer these non-restrictive contracts.
I think it was, was it France?
Rumble's a public company.
Think of the balls it takes where I think it was the government of France that said you have to start changing content and they said, right?
When you're a public company and you tell an entire government, fine.
That's the kind of balls that people are explaining.
And these people, and by the way, the guy who runs Rumble is a Canadian, the CEO.
He's not even, I don't think he's super conservative.
He just sees the writing on the wall.
Why do those people get it?
Why?
Because he's been under the, I would say, tyranny now when you see someone like Trudeau, just because he does blackface and he can't throw a jab doesn't mean he's not a tyrant, right?
People have lived under that tyranny.
They go, we can't let that happen here.
So Rumble gets it.
They tell France to go fornicate themselves with a wire brush.
But the people who take money from hard-earned conservative Americans who are wondering how they can fight back, how they can have a voice, don't see it.
Do they not see it, or is it the business model, right?
Did you feel like your buddy, and what I mean your buddy, like you and Jeremy are friends-ish, or friends or whatever, but that he low-balled you, he knows your value and he low-balled you, and you're like, dude, if you're gonna do that to me, I'm taking, I'm going scorched earth.
I'll do everything legal in my- No, no, it wasn't the low-ball.
It wasn't the low-ball.
It was the, hey, look, prompt, look, let's just sit down and talk about how you can do this without mandating through punitive practices against, not some, according to him and his video.
All conservative content creators, let's find a different way because there's no future in this.
There's a lot there that's permissible, right?
Business, money, I get it.
Yeah, lowball, sure.
And you know that.
Everyone knows that.
But what's really hard to deal with is there was a period, like I talked about with Gerald Note, where I was super depressed.
It felt kind of hopeless, because this has been a long time in the making, and you knock on one door and you have people you think are on your side.
You know, it's, no, wait, this is how it works.
And then you, because you don't see behind, you know, the curtain, you hear that we're fighting back against big tech, and you see this offer and you go, oh, there's no future here.
And the response to, this is not right, has always been money, money, money, money.
What first needs to be done is people to mean what they say.
And if you are taking money from conservatives out there, under the guise that you are fighting big tech, start fucking fighting big tech.
Start with that, okay?
I don't know about the... and I know that when I say this, by the way, they're going to send... there are going to be four or five hatchet men coming from the daily... I understand that, by the way.
Have you seen anyone else in these videos?
This is the first time Gerald's been here because I'm like, look, you handle the finances more than I do.
It's me.
It's 2-on-1, it's 3-on-1, it's 4-on-1.
And gee golly, we thought we were friends.
And you know what?
I'm not going to call anyone a bitch.
I still, I mean what I said, Andrew Klavan's one of my all-time favorite people.
I think Jordan Peterson is unbelievable.
I go to the wall for that guy.
I think Ben Shapiro is brilliant.
Never met Candace Owens.
Michael Knowles, my experience with him, I don't know him as well.
My question for him is because he said like this might be a solution.
You have this idea or you're creating an actual product.
I don't know all of it.
You have a decentralized way to subscribe to people because and also people who get to keep their subscribers.
By the way, this isn't Daily Wire.
It is industry standard in the conservative sphere.
You don't get to know how many subscribers you have, you don't get to take them with you, which only hurts people who are paying if you end up leaving, you know, if you end up not being with the network.
That's industry standard, not daily wire.
Again, Stop Big Con was not just about daily wire.
You don't even know, you don't even get to reach them.
That is the standard, not just there.
And you mentioned something before the show, and I'm a little ignorant as to what it is, forgive me.
You said it's like this decentralized ability for people to, sort of an anti-patreon, Yeah, it is just basically doing what Patreon does, but without a Patreon middleman.
So it'd be a piece of software packet that you download, install on your computer, and then you can start uploading videos through the software packet to Rumble as a server, or YouTube as a server, unlisted the videos.
And then people would go to your website where you have a front-end hosted with this packet, and they can subscribe, ten bucks a month.
Then they can see on your website the unlisted videos from the other sites.
The idea right now is that you're an independent creator.
You go to Patreon, you go to Locals, you go to someone else's company, you sign up, there's
the infrastructure, you give them 10%.
I've done the math, 10% is steep, but they're trying to run a business, have employees,
so I get it.
We were talking about this a long time ago, make the software, you get your own server space, your cost, you get your own domain, your cost, you install that software for free, open source, and boom, instantly your website is a clone of a subscription service website with an easy-to-use backend for you that networks with anyone else who uses it.
You can also blacklist certain sites from your site if you're like, I don't want my site to recommend this, you know.
So, or it's just you let the algorithm recommend whatever they recommend, like similar words and phrases.
So what this does is if I go to your website and you want to be included in the network, people will see, and this could be bad for business, some people might want to do it, they will see like recommended Timcast IRL episode with Steven Crowder and be like, oh, I'd like to watch that show too.
One of the powerful things about YouTube is that it recommends shows after shows.
But if there would be a way for, kind of like you were talking about with Maker, for there to be an alliance where maybe there's some kind of a price break or discount if you get to subscribe to these other creators, right?
So that you don't have to do $6 on a Patreon here or $5 on Locals here.
And by the way, nothing wrong with it.
I'm just saying people feel like there's this payment fatigue, this subscription fatigue.
If we want to fight the left, right, think about just what they call the stream with Batista, he's in this like canoe, talking about like Disney, ESPN, and what is it, Disney, and Hulu, right?
That's a value added.
And I think this is what was so disheartening is, was really hoping that we could do that in the conservative movement where people can kind of get access to a portal and support the people that they want to.
I don't know that it's possible.
But if there would be somebody for the view, because for the viewer, what's ideal is to be able
to get access to more people that they want rather than having to, because the price adds up.
There are people who have been successful in media who aren't.
I don't know why they have that conspiracy belief.
But it was shocking for me to find out that these big alternatives Only exists because some powerful industrialist or billionaire decided, I'm gonna spend money, but that money comes with their influence.
Now, the only issue I have with that is that we don't know what their influence is.
The only way people will 100% believe what I say, and that there's no ulterior motive, which is what I try to do in the negotiations, like take me off the table, this is why this is a sticking point, is if I walk away from this forever.
Is if I never monetize again, and I just go back off into the sunset, just, you know, do stand-up, maybe do a once-a-week show, something like that, so I can continue selling out the venues.
And I could do that.
And Gerald knows that I strongly considered that at one point.
And I think he was the one, if I'm not mistaken, who said like, yeah, but then if you do that, then this will just all blow over in two months, and it'll be the same problem.
So I get the question of authenticity, but I would ask you if this is the easy decision, if this is the easy route to make, route to take, could have just taken the money, shut up, could have gone off, and I don't think it's $100 million, I think you're absolutely insane.
I'm saying for one, the easy route for you would have absolutely been signed the deal.
Take the money and shut up.
Let everyone else worry about all the problems and go sit on the beach with a coconut and just do the bare minimum.
But I think if you go the hard way, which running a company, especially with I think the size of memberships you're going to have, is going to be very difficult and time consuming, but just, you know, make Gerald do all the hard work.
Based on your memberships, based on the amount of views you get, do you think you will be bigger than – I'm not saying this as – It would – if I decided that I – let me answer it this way.
I've wanted to be done with this by the time I'm 40 as far as hosting the show on air.
The last thing I want to do is overstay your welcome and then move to a, I wouldn't say necessarily like a Harvey Weinstein or like a Bruckheimer, but more like a Suge Knight.
Right now there is no ability to because you now realize there's no ability for people to come up and do.
It would be really hard for you to do what you do now today.
You know that, right?
And it'd be impossible for someone to do what I do.
I don't want to pull the ladder up behind me.
So I want to be able to move into a production role, but really what motivates me is being able to pass that mantle and make a difference.
I guarantee you if we were to do it, it'd be within striking distance of the big boys, which I'd be fine with, but as long as we do something that we believe in, and I promise we will never Demand people's YouTube monetization. We will never punish
them if they're not And it has to be something fair and has to be us not shortchanging
the investor meaning the people mug club. It's entirely independent
Paying us for to fight for what they believe whatever those numbers are. I'd accept them
Then what's going to happen is it's going to make it very difficult for the big con, these other big conservative companies, to sign these deals when a young creator says, I appreciate the offer, it's tempting, but Crowder's offering me twice the money with no setbacks.
When you see a burning building, you think, who's gonna call this in?
No, no, no.
No one's gonna call in.
It's gonna be you.
I once watched, when I was 16 years old, I saw an old lady at a bus stop flip over, land on her back, and I paused and said, I have no idea what to do.
What is happening?
I look around and I'm like, I gotta figure this one out.
And I ran full speed to a building and just screamed, call 911, a lady's hurt.
There's nobody else.
You can't sit back and just cross your fingers and hope someone else will take care of the problem.
Yeah, well, that's the thing I think Candace brought up, right?
Again, there's a difference between roping in third parties versus single-party consent.
I think he tweeted out what happened where he left, right?
Not Gay Jared.
He tweeted out that he left.
It was his own decision.
We did a whole send-off with him in a video montage.
You know, this works with like conspiracies and sometimes, look, there's also a middle ground where there's, for example, like what is the email, by the way, if people are talking about shows?
But the reason I didn't want to do it is because I didn't want a thing that's like, hey, this is why we're doing this right now.
But we do have a place where people can reach out.
The challenge is there's completely controlling contracts that own your name, image, likeness, and your platforms that you already built in perpetuity.
That's an extreme example.
That's big con.
Then you have people who are like, hey, I have no experience.
I've never done a show, but I really think I could do it well if you give me money.
That's a situation where you'd be incurring all the risk.
There is a middle ground, and I think what needs to happen...
I'm not going to be in the business of just creating shows from the ground up, but there are people out there who say, hey look, I have a channel that's doing relatively well, I keep hitting the ceiling that is YouTube saying we need you to play this kind of ball, I'm suffering from the advertising rates, the sponsorship rates dropping across the board, and I can just be the gasoline on that fire to back them up.
Why would you sign with a network if they don't have your back?
That's the only reason to, otherwise be independent, right?
What is the upside at that point?
That's all we want to be, and whatever subscribers you generate, you keep.
Let me mention perpetuity clauses really quick before we go to super chats because you brought them up a couple times.
Dog nasty and need to be removed immediately from modern entertainment contracts because deepfakes, they're going to be able to take someone's perpetuity face, deepfake it to make it look real and have it say stuff that the person doesn't agree with.
Smash the like button, become a member at TimCast.com.
We're going to record the uncensored portion once we wrap up the live portion, which I can only imagine will be a lot crazier, but we're going to read some of these super chats.
We have from Bren Ben.
Remember, guys, everyone agrees that you need a shotgun.
Even Biden is pro-firing two blasts outside the house.
Please, the love of God, do not fire a shotgun into the air like Biden said.
All right, here's a... It's like where the wild things are.
Kristen Baker says, Will Crowder's company pay his creators guaranteed big money regardless of the revenues they bring in while they let their freak flag fly?
Nobody said it was regardless of revenues you bring in.
It just said it could not be tied to big tech monetization and being on these platforms.
If you're bringing in five subscribers versus 500,000, that's a much different thing.
Yeah.
And sponsors versus no sponsors, that's a much different thing.
Nobody said that they couldn't make money, and nobody said Steven had to be given a guaranteed production contract no matter what money he brought in.
They were completely and conveniently leaving that off of the table and saying, this is a lot of money, and if you lose anything, That's not going to happen.
Again, this is what happens in the entertainment industry.
Every time, whether it's a band at a venue, you do a minimum guarantee, which is going to be lower, which mitigates your risk, or you get the gate, you do a rev split with upside.
You see any upside there?
Is there any portion there that says, by the way, if you actually do have the 300,000, which is well over 300,000 people who said we're going to be in Mug Club, if you actually do hit that, you, okay, get to share in this.
And then what we found out 10 years ago was their view numbers were inflated because they were buying the rights to garbage network traffic views that don't matter and claiming it was a premium view.
And they're wondering why they start laying all these people off from these digital media companies.
It's like, look, man, if the sponsor thinks they're buying gold standard view, but for every 10 views, one is gold standard and nine is like clickbait garbage, they're wasting money.
Best restaurants in the world, in Montreal, probably pound for pound, and there are a lot of great Canadians.
We could probably get an uncensored version, it would be boring here, but if you look at the Quebec separatism, a lot of that is very similar to the taxation without representation and a rugged sort of individualistic spirit.
But then they also wanted to have the language police.
You know about that?
unidentified
La Ligue des Langues, where literally... Or the Spaghetti Gate, you know Spaghetti Gate?
Yeah, it was an Italian restaurant, and spaghetti was spaghetti, and the language police said, why isn't it in French?
That's not French, it's Italian, like, we don't care, spell it spaghetti with an E. Yes, they said, put spaghetti in there, but there's no French for it, and they were like, doesn't matter, you have to have it in French.
You know, it's funny, actually, like, you talk about that, like, no, I do speak French.
It was actually, I learned to read and write French first.
I spoke both.
They thought I was learning disabled, They thought I was an idiot up until the fourth grade because I had to do, the rule in Canada, and it comes from something they call pure land, which means pure wool, where they want pure French European blood.
They don't necessarily do it anymore.
And it ended up backfiring because a bunch of Haitians and Vietnamese would come in because, you know, I speak French.
And they were like, ah, Carlis, now we have all the, but not European French there.
They're black from Haiti, so they changed their laws.
But the issue is if you have one parent born in Quebec, whether they're English or not, you have to go to French immersion schools.
So it wasn't that I was that dumb.
It's that I was having to learn geography, history, math in French and was falling behind.
And when they finally threw a loophole, said, hey, if you do it as a temporary resident because your dad's American, this principal really did probably save my educational career in grade school, fourth grade, they switched me to English.
And then, you know, I made it to, like, a B-minus student.
Like, which means that I won't be a genius, but I won't be a mass shooter.
There are genuinely a lot of people who are like, you know, they may not like what The Daily Wire is doing, but they like that it's a cultural force in the other direction.
Yeah, I think the only company that can actually offer the deal that you keep your members is Rumble.
So I think, you know, Rumble's doing a bunch of deals with people, and I'm pretty sure those deals are, while we have you signed, the revenue comes to us.
When the term ends, the membership revenue is yours.
It's a part of your account that you own, and we've no longer licensed it.
For these other companies, there's no way to effectively take a portion of your members and put them on a different website.
WeThePeople says, I was abstain in the poll earlier, but the second half, I voted now in favor of Steven Crowder, Fightback.
Yeah, so this is interesting.
When the story first broke, we did a poll.
85% Crowder is Right, very small percentage in favor of the Daily Wire.
We didn't have the Epstein in it.
Candace Owens comes on the show.
It then dropped down to like 55 to 60% Crowder is Right, 40 or so percent Daily Wire is Right.
We did the show today.
Obviously, you guys erected a lot of your fans to the show, so there's a big swing in your favor, but the second poll more dramatically swung in your favor.
Well, so did the biggest, most powerful conservative network in the world, according to how their press release is Daily Wire.
I would assume that when their people come on, it would be the same thing.
Here's the thing.
I shouldn't even be in the same ballpark.
In other words, there's such a dearth of creative content out there that I'm even within striking distance with no seed money, certainly not multi-millionaires or billionaires front-loading it, it shouldn't even be close.
And I can tell you, Now, live number... Hey, Tim, let me ask you this.
You can go on Google Ads, take a video from some random little kid, pay for 100,000, 10,000 views, if you want, and that kid will have no idea it happened.
I didn't mean the Ronald McDonald House for crying out loud.
We used to do that, of course, where you could run videos just through Google AdSense.
We've been barred for a very long time from doing that.
And I want to be clear, I have no problem None whatsoever with people advertising.
I think I want more conservatives to have advertising budgets because I want us to outfight the left.
I have no problem with people choosing, and it's a strategy, to be monetized on YouTube.
I think at a certain point when you look at the advertiser guidelines, which are very different from the content guidelines, they include you could be demonetized for Controversial topics, sensitive issues.
I don't even want to say it's a slippery slope.
They've already covered everything under that with their umbrella.
Don't have a problem with someone making that decision.
I only have a problem when you tell people that you are fighting back and they are expecting it and investing and you're not and you're demanding that everybody else Do it the same way as you do.
There's only one side demanding that.
We get rid of that, I'll go on a press tour for all these companies.
I mean it.
Get rid of the punitive mandates against conservative content creators.
And by the way, it's a big problem too if there's a huge, unlike the left, there's far too much influence from nonprofits on the conservative side.
And a lot of these, this is another big part, a part of big con that we haven't even gotten into.
You have a lot of these companies and this is not, I'm not saying daily, daily wire.
Again, there are a lot of companies where they have a nonprofit wing and we all know there's a big difference between a 501c3 and a 501c4.
And the audits that have taken place, because what happens is the non-profit money, you have donors go in there, but then that's used in some way to help generate content where they collect the profit.
It says, I am a Daily Wire subscriber, and I was under the impression that my money was helping to protect their message from the predation of big tech censors.
As a subscriber, my trust was what was betrayed.
That's an interesting point.
The one thing I brought to people is, like, look, whether you agree or disagree with Crowder, there's a question of, why penalize someone for using YouTube access when the goal is to build a subscription business?
Does Netflix say to their show creators, if your show gets pulled from YouTube, we're cutting your fees, despite the fact we charge $10 a month for them to watch it on Netflix?
Not the employee, or in the case of an actual independent production house, you don't penalize them for something that they weren't making in the first place.
Yes, you do incur some risk.
And in this scenario, it was a no-risk situation, personally.