Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of the Resist and Unsubscribe movement?
You don't normally tune into a late night TV show expecting a rigorous debate about free speech, but somehow this is the world we live in. This week on The Verge Cast, we're talking about how FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has turned his agency into the speech police and why it's falling to people like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel to fight back.
That plus the gadgets we are and maybe aren't getting from Apple and others this year and the latest in the chatbot wars. On The Verge Cast, wherever you get podcasts.
I'm Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice. 21 days in, the Resist and Unsubscribe website has garnered 1.2 million unique visits with no paid media. Which media drives traffic and which media inspires action? The Algebra of Resistance, as read by George Hahn. What media matters?
There's influence, but the ability to fund that influence is a function of which content, media, and brands drive action. In sum, where do third parties, i.e. advertisers, spend capital to get high-quality traffic?
For the past two and a half weeks, I've been trying, from a standing start, to shape and inspire a flow of visitors to resistandunsubscribe.com, with the aim of converting them into unsubscribers. After launching Resist and Unsubscribe, I needed to build awareness and turn to broadcast media.
Since February 1, I've hit every corner of the map, from Amanpour and Anderson Cooper to the bulwark and MSNOW. Our goal is to counter Trump's assault on American values by zeroing in on what he really cares about, the markets. We're asking people to join an economic strike targeting big tech and companies enabling ICE.
If we succeed in turning even a small number of them into unsubscribers, that could translate into a sizable decline in subscription growth, mother's milk to the tech companies, and market value. Only then will CEOs who've enabled the president push back, or at least get off their knees.
It's understandable to feel powerless and fair to point to the power of protests or identify the November midterm elections as the opportunity to reverse America's descent into authoritarianism. And it's easy to write off our campaign as quixotic. Boycotts don't work. It's fantasy to think CEOs will take on the president. People are too reliant on their iPhones and Amazon Prime.
But the stats show our movement is working. During my 21-day, 30-outlet media tour, we've registered more than 1.5 million visits to our Resist and Unsubscribe website without spending a penny on ads. The ads we tried to buy were deemed political and rejected by Meta and Google.
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Chapter 3: How does media influence action and traffic?
But the black community, led by a young preacher named Martin Luther King Jr., coordinated a massive carpool system, 300 private cars, to boycott public buses over 381 days, costing the bus system about $3,000 per day, $35,000 adjusted for inflation. Segregation on public buses ended in 1956 after a Supreme Court ruling declared it unconstitutional.
As Lucy Atkinson, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told NPR, boycotts work when they last. She believes it will be tough for consumers to walk away from Amazon, which dominates the e-commerce market. But cutting the number of hours spent on its tech offerings, even for a short period, could reduce consumers' reliance on the company, potentially extending the boycott.
As an entrepreneur who's been blessed with economic security, I don't believe it's my right to tell people to stop working and take the risk of getting fired. That's why I'm not proposing a labor strike. I also don't want to be the arbiter who prescribes exactly what steps a person should take, which products they should drop and for how long.
Our hope is that we will ignite a conversation and provide people with a resistance roadmap, showing Americans they have a weapon hiding in plain sight. They have the capacity to make a difference. We estimate our campaign has directly cost big tech a quarter of a billion in market value so far.
That's a promising start, even if it's not enough to force the CEOs who have Trump's ear to do the right thing. I'll continue to be a media whore as long as they take my calls. But others will need to pick up the baton if we're going to elevate the debate to the boardroom and avoid the fate of boycotts that have largely been forgotten. Remember 2018's Delete Facebook campaign? Check the archives.
The nihilistic view that these are uniquely dark times is not accurate. Our nation has endured a civil war, world wars, plagues, and a depression. In each case, Americans were equal to the challenge, and our democracy emerged stronger. That's the question. Are we equal to the task?
If, like me, you owe a debt to America, having garnered more from the nation than you've invested, then when do you plan to make good, to recognize the sacrifice of previous generations whose shoulders you're standing on? What will you say at the end when your kids ask, Dad, what did you do in the war against fascism? Life is so rich.
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