No Mercy / No Malice: The Algebra of Resistance

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1:04Scott Galloway:This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Introducing VirtuoUp, the latest in a long line of innovation from Nespresso. It's innovation you can touch, sense, and taste in every single cup. With a three-second start, easy open lever, and dedicated brew over ice button, it's even easier to enjoy your coffee your way. Zip for yourself. Shop Virtuo up exclusively at Nespresso.com. I'm Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice. 21 days in, the resistant, unsubscribed website has garnered 1.2 million unique visits with no paid media. Which media drives traffic and which media inspires action.

1:52Scott Galloway:The Algebra of Resistance, as read by George Hahn.

2:03George 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 MS Now.

2:55George Hahn: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 dissent into authoritarianism.

3:47George Hahn: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 resistant unsubscribe website without spending a penny on ads. The ads we tried to buy were deemed political and rejected by Meta and Google. Uploading our site analytics into ChatGPT and Claude, I asked what the cost would be to drive that amount of traffic to an e-commerce startup or political advocacy site.

4:38George Hahn:The range was$4.5 million to$8 million in paid ads. Our owned channels provide substantial economic firepower. The unfortunate learning? Arguably, one of the best investments a young person can make is to build an owned media channel every day for 20 years. In the summer of 2007, I started following 100 people a day on Twitter to get 40 follows back. The investment in content, videos, podcasts, and personnel to say nothing of the emotional toll. I fucking hate social media and the toxicity that is the comments section, has had a huge ROI. The data provides valuable insights about the media ecosystem and what inspires audiences to act.

5:35George Hahn:Traditional media, podcasts, and social media accounts are all providing fuel for the campaign, generating support we couldn't achieve on our own, but some channels are more effective than others. Out of the gates, the reaction was mostly positive. More than 3 ,300 new readers joined the No Mercy, No Malice subscriber list, and 500 people commented on my January 30 post outlining our call to arms. My Instagram account, if you want to spread the word you're a prisoner to the monopolistic platform, lit up as my more than 1.6 million followers responded to my videos. Still, the wider impact was muted.

6:22George Hahn:Seeking to expand our footprint, we shifted focus to some of the heavyweights of traditional media, including CNN's Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper, PBS's Hari Sreenivasan, and MS Now's Stephanie Rule. Their networks still have influence, a halo effect that drives online engagement and interest among other media outlets. Although Congress has slashed$500 million in funding for public media, those outlets haven't gone anywhere. Our data show a single story on NPR's website led more than 28 ,000 unique visitors to our website, behind only Instagram, Facebook, and Google. Assuming a conversion rate of 5%.

7:11George Hahn:Fair, given that many e-commerce sites register rates of 2 % to 4%, and that paid ads aren't driving our more intentional visitors. That's more than 1 ,400 people unsubscribing. If consumers ditch two platforms on average, that's 2 ,800 unsubscribes, about$700 ,000 of lost sales, and a$7 million impact on market cap, relying on a standard industry multiple of 10x revenue. The major media outlets have given us a bump, but the buzz is proving hard to sustain. We knew we needed other voices providing third-party credibility to maintain the energy. We've received mentions from current and former elected representatives, AOC and Adam Kinzinger, but we live in a celebrity nation.

8:09George Hahn:Chelsea Handler, who contacted me after hearing about Resistant Unsubscribe, posted a video earlier this month focusing on the platforms she's unsubscribed from.

8:20Scott Galloway:I understand not everyone is in the same position. I'm in, but we can all do things to make sure that these companies are not profiting off of ice. You can get rid of Apple. You can get rid of Amazon. You can make sure that these companies actually feel an impact.

8:35George Hahn:The video garnered more than 128 ,000 likes and inspired more than 6 ,000 visits, almost a fifth of the 34 ,000 users who've migrated from Instagram to our site. Applying the same math, that's more than$100 ,000 of lost revenue and$1 million in market value from just one post. Influential voices, including Tim Miller from the Bulwark podcast, are having more impact on their own platforms than when they appear on traditional platforms. We've drawn more than 18 ,000 people from Substack, no doubt fueled by Miller's account, almost as many people as we've attracted from our own site, profgalloway.com.

9:26George Hahn:My conversation earlier this week with MS Now's Nicole Wallace on her podcast, The Best People, has almost half a million views on YouTube. That's aligned with the trends we're seeing on Pivot. Data show that among the core demographic, adults between 25 and 54, Pivot has a bigger audience than Fox News, CNN, or CNBC. While we trail Fox and CNN in overall audience size, those who tune in to Pivot have a much higher median income. One point I've tried to drive home is that you have more power than you think. If you cancel a premium chat GPT subscription, that's$20 a month or$240 a year in savings.

10:15George Hahn:Given that OpenAI is approaching a funding round that values the company at about$850 billion, more than 40 times its revenue of$20 billion, a withdrawal of$240 translates into a market cap reduction of about$10 ,000. That's just one tech company we've identified as having an outsized influence over the economy and our president, alongside Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, Paramount, and Uber. While tech is the main focus, we're also targeting companies that enable ICE, such as AT &T, Comcast, and Dell. With these companies, we aim to inflict maximum disruption with minimum impact on consumers.

11:12George Hahn:We know that slowing subscriber growth stings. Exhibit A is T-Mobile. Earlier this month, it reported adding 30 ,000 fewer mobile phone subscribers than analysts expected in the fourth quarter. The company shed$12 billion in market value in after-hours trading. In the tech industry, even slight misses can have a significant impact. Microsoft lost more than$350 billion in value on January 29th after sales growth at its Azure cloud division, slowed by a single percentage point from the prior quarter. Most economic strikes do not work. Those that do are the result of sustained efforts, not one cinematic action.

12:03George Hahn:On December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, a defining moment in the American civil rights movement. 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 The struggle we face today is different but we can find inspiration in our nation's past One thing is clear Sustained economic pressure is critical As Lucy Atkinson, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin told NPR are boycotts work when they last.

13:12George Hahn: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.

13:51George Hahn: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.

14:38George Hahn: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?

15:37George Hahn:Life is so rich.