The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - referendum PART 2

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

I'm sorry for how boring this episode is but these issues MUST be addressedIf you didn't like the result of the referendum, come and tell me about it on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/jdfmccannTickets on sale for the tour now: www.jdfmccann.com/gigs Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan. If you'd like to listen to bonus episodes, go sign up to the Patreon. That's patreon.com. Clom? Ah, we f***ed it. Anyway, look, you'll find a way. Catamaran Home! I did a referendum on my podcast stand. Marvellous.

What was the... what did you... Well, I took all the ads off because I don't believe in advertising and because the people hosting the podcast weren't paying me because they were having some problems but now they're agreeing to pay me again so i asked people should i have ads for the boat well where's the where's the money what do you mean so you would advertise the boat itself no i advertise on the boat podcast to get the boat. So more people listen to the boat podcast. I generate ideally money from advertising,

but I had to turn all the ads off because no money was coming in because they were stuffing around. But they fixed it now. But I made such a hubbub about turning the ads off, I didn't know if I should turn them back on. So I asked the people who pay me, which is my other source of income for the boat, should I turn the ads back on?

Well, I mean, it sounds like this is a false choice. How so? You didn't give the people an alternative to the ad revenue. Well, I said yes or no, or I could have an ad-free version on Patreon so people could pay for that. How else are we to make the money? Growing wheat in a field? We've got to put this podcast to work, Stan.

So I'm still confused. So now they are paying you for the advertising. Now they will be paying me if the ads are turned back on. But I still have to choose whether or not I will turn the ads back on or not. Whether or not I stand firm to a principle of having no advertising or buckle to the forces of commercial necessity, as some might term it, and turn the ads back on. You've painted yourself into a corner there.

So what did the people decide? Well, the results are in! Breaking news! After several days on the James Donald Forbes McCann Patreon, the results are in on the referendum for advertising on the podcast. Stan's gone now. Thank you, Stan, for appearing. He was just in the office and I never know how to start the podcast.

And it's always nice to do a little interview there. Stan, Stan, everybody. Yes, the results are in and you've had your say. Here is the post. The question that I posed to the now 65 strong Patreons. I said, even after 50,000 downloads and many more ads played, checks weren't coming for the podcast. A terrible situation. So I disabled the advertising and did a whole episode blasting the podcast hosting people. Well, wouldn't you know after being publicly attacked, these people have finally gotten their bums into gear

and fixed the damn thing. It appears as though there's now a reasonable amount of money up for grabs if I turn the advertising money back on. I personally hate being exposed to advertising, but also I personally want money for a boat. So I'm turning this question over to my beloved Patreons. The choice is yours. What is to be done?

The three options were turn the ads back on. The boat is the highest principle of all, and we are happy to suffer them For you to own a boat Number two Leave the ads off Yes, it is potentially a longer road to a boat But it is a road we can be proud of

And option number three Turn the ads back on for the non-Patreons Only let the unwashed masses Who contribute so little Suffer the ads But but spare us the elite. So my thought was that we could have an ad free version on the Patreon. Slightly more uploading time. But there we have it.

Overwhelmingly. There were 33 votes, which is roughly a turnout of 50%. Pretty good for referendums, considering that's a first one. I don't know that everybody who was on the Patreon comes from a country where they have democracy. So a big thank you to anybody who is unfamiliar with the concept, who has participated. And 50% is, I think, a pretty good turnout. I'm calling that a quorum, if that's the term.

33 votes. One person, 3% of the voters, said leave the the ads off and i know who they are because they left a comment we're going to go through the comments there were eight comments and we're going to go through them but yes 97 in favor of ads in some form and of them overwhelmingly we've had 67 percent of people say turn the ads back on So the ads will be turned back on. Not for this episode, because I think that would spoil the mystery of answering the question if there were ads at the start of it. And I think not for the ads disabled episode, because I think that would be incongruous

to advertise on the episode where I just shout about how much I hate advertising. But otherwise, ads will be turned on with some conditions. Let's first go through the comments that people made during the referendum. Chris writes, the sooner your naval conquests commence, the better. Initiate the ad dollars. So a strong yes from Chris there. Appreciate the ad dollars. So a strong yes from Chris there.

Deacon writes, I will suffer through the ads and offer it up to our Lord for my own good and for the good of all his holy church. Deacon, thank you very much. Possibly a deacon for all I know. Thank you for that. Willie writes, it's easy enough to skip ads. Get that bag cappin'. Thank you, Willie, Julie noted. Robert writes, I usually skip ads. I must admit, I was getting annoyed towards the end when they started playing at weird times,

like two minutes before the end of an episode. I didn't know that was happening, Robert. We'll try and make sure that doesn't happen anymore. But he says, skipping is easy. If you still get paid despite all the ads being skipped, I'm all for it. Robert, I do get paid. Apparently. Haven't been paid yet, but apparently I will be paid no matter if you skip the ads or not.

Paddy writes, whatever it takes to get that boat. Paddy, I like the spirit of what you're saying. Obviously, I wouldn't do anything to get the boat. Otherwise, I would have killed people and taken their boat by now. But, duly noted, I will do lots of things to get that boat. Jono writes, WWGD, what would Gilgamesh do? Take that sweet ad cash. Yes, he would.

I am partial to the epic of Gilgamesh. So, Jono, I want to say thank you for that Gilgamesh inspired pro boat message. Mark writes, I enjoy a good ad. Would I like to protect my home against title theft? Sure. And I don't even have a house. Mark, good to know that the targeting of the ads is going well. good to know that the targeting of the ads is going well now here was a message from i think well it's from liam and i presume the only uh leave the ads off voter he says run it by the good money crew i would guess jacob imam would tell you that ad revenue from amazon prime ads is not good money if you stand by all the advertisers and their products, maybe it's a different story. As it stands, I'd say ad revenue is filthy. Luca, keep them off.

Save your soul and settle for a dinghy. Few things there, Liam. Number one, I will never settle for a dinghy. And if you think there's going to be a dinghy at the end of this catamaran podcast, you've got another thing coming, Liam. There will be no dinghy. There end of this catamaran podcast you've got another thing coming liam there will be no dinghy there will be a catamaran or bust catamaran ho liam catamaran forever second point liam i think the rest of what you said was actually very sensible and i liked it

so i will i don't know when but at some point i will speak to the good money boys i would love to have them on it's one of the podcasts I was happiest to be on. It's one of the very few podcasts I do listen to. I really like that podcast. I really like those lads. And I look forward to talking to them about the topic of advertising in the future. I may even write them an email.

But I will be, I think, in Steubenville soon. And I would love to do that in person. Then there was an edit that Liam wrote. Glad you took the high road with today's episode. By which I assume he means and turned it over to the people. Actually, I don't know. I don't know what that's referring to. Liam, I don't know that I've ever truly taken the high road.

But let me know. The ads are coming back. But as Liam points out there, if you stand by all the advertisers and their products, maybe it's a different story. Well, I did look up what the Catholic Church asks us to do with advertising. It's actually quite a big wormhole,

and I spent many hours, and I found out who owns the company, the platform that these podcasts go on. What rights do I have to reject ads on that platform? So I'm going to go into some detail on that now. So the Vatican Pontifical Council on Ethics in Advertising, I think this is from the 90s. I'll read a little something for it. So this is from the conclusion. We do not wish and certainly we do not expect to see advertising eliminated from the contemporary world. Well, there's a difference between them and me. Moreover, for the reasons and in the ways sketched here, we believe advertising can and often does play a constructive role in the economic growth, in the exchange of information and ideas.

So on, basically. And then it says, yet it can also do and often does grave harm to individuals and the common good. That's what I'm talking about. In light of these reflections. In light of these reflections is a strange way to word that, Pontifical Council. Hmm. light of these reflections is a strange way to word that pontifical council in light of the reflections makes me think of a big hall of mirrors shining radiance now we call upon advertising professionals and upon those involved in the process of commissioning and disseminating

advertising so that's immediately in there to eliminate its socially harmful aspects and observe high ethical standards in regard to truthfulness, human dignity and social responsibility. In this way, they will make a special and significant contribution to human progress and to the common good. So the question then becomes, does the company hosting advertising have good ethical standards? I had to look that up. hosting advertising have good ethical standards. I had to look that up. So if I can have advertising on the condition that the company I'm using to have the ads is holding to ethical standards, that's fine. So I looked up the company's ethical standards

and it's ACAST, by the way, A-C-A-S-T. And they have a big terms and conditions for creators. And in.7.7, ACAST agrees that all ACAST commercials shall comply with all applicable laws and regulations. And then they have their own rules. No explicit, graphic, threatening, abusive, harassing, libelous, defamatory, misleading, deceptive, fraudulent, invasive of another's privacy rights and so on. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The question then becomes, what are all applicable laws and regulations? Right? So they've said, we have regulations. And not just any regulations. All of them. So I've looked up what regulations there are in Australia, and it's governed by something called the ACCC. It's Australia's...

And by the way, yes, I'm aware that this part of the podcast gets very boring. It's going to keep being boring. It's not getting more exciting unless you're a big fan of legislation that controls what advertising can and cannot be so the ACCC says that Australia is a competition regulator and national consumer law champion and gee if there's one thing I love it's when bureaucracies describe themselves as champions uh the Wikipedia has maybe a more direct, less hagiographic definition. And they say they're the chief competition regulator.

So as far as I can tell, the ACCC just makes sure that liberalism can continue and not descend into a state of sort of warlordism. So we have to have markets that are competitive, informed, and regulated to some extent to increase the prosperity and welfare of all Australians. They take action that promotes the proper functioning of Australian markets. It's all just liberal stuff, right? It's all about... It's basically if you've got a bunch of bankers together and you've decided what they really believe.

Transparency is a big thing. But the question I want to ask is sort of just do I personally have to have things on my podcast that I don't like? Do I have to have ads for, you know, condoms and the euthanasia factory? And it comes down to then the question, if there aren't, obviously there aren't advertising regulations against condoms and the euthanasia factory and it comes down to then the question if there aren't obviously there aren't advertising regulations against condoms i don't know about the euthanasia factory in this country but condoms they advertise all the time and i would beg people not to use condom just for your own sake do i trust a cast is the question that it comes down to in the end do i trust them to put good ads on my podcast?

Do I trust them to take ads off the podcast that I don't want there? So Acast is a Swedish company. That's one of the things I found out. And I actually tend to like Sweden and their companies. I find that Sweden has a stronger commitment to freedom of speech than many other European nations. It's a weird little country. But I'm overwhelmingly pro-Sweden. So that was nice.

I liked that they were Swedish. And they have guiding principles. They don't have rights. They don't have, they wouldn't even say values here. But ACAST have guiding principles. And it's things like ACAST is a strong believer in open and free exchange of information. The fundamental guiding principles that ACAST shall always seek to safeguard freedom of expression and freedom of information for creators and listeners, while protecting listeners from content and commercials that are illegal or according to acast's assessment in any

other aspect harmful or inappropriate so that's all sort of positive in a vague sense i find that all quite positive what i find even more positive is that acast has something called a block list so as the person with the podcast i can make a block list and then I can decide. Now, I can't decide which companies can't advertise, but I can decide which sort of advertisers can't advertise. So it's not watertight. It's not the system that I would design. It's basically a system that I think advertisers would design. In fact, it's the system designed by advertisers i looked up it's called the a it's called the iab and it seems to be just a group of large companies that have got together to decide on self-regulated advertising industry norms so that the big players in town don't get

in trouble and they can say but look we have this regulatory body don't we and then you go but you you made the regulatory body revlon anyway ad manager for acast uses the iab content category taxonomy version one and that just breaks down into a series of different companies as far as i can tell so things like do you want political ads to run on the website you can say yes or no i don't think i would mind political ads i think that's probably part of a well-functioning democracy that people can buy advertising for their point of view so i would allow political ads therefore but there are other things. The finance industry. And I'd probably have to say that

even though I'm not opposed to everything in the finance industry, if there's a Muslim bank that wants to advertise on the podcast, I would say absolutely yes, please. I love what Muslim banks do. But if it was just letting any bank in who can charge interest and other usurious things, I would have to say no thank you. So what I am going to do is I'm going to go through all

the different companies that I can block list and if I think that there is very much room as a reasonable person would decide for that advertising to have a harmful or negative impact or not sit with our catamaran guiding principles, I'll add that to the block list. So some other things I think would be other religions. As much as I love Islamic banks, you know, I don't i would let's say any other religions uh evangelists by advertising space on my podcast because i am you know a practicing catholic i don't believe that there is salvation outside the church i do believe that what the church is, is a pretty, I think it's more porous than some other people might say that it is. I think that's what's in the catechism and that's what the church teaches.

But it's not for me to say and it's certainly not for me to be outside of. We should all be struggling to be inside the church to avoid hellfire if we can. Excuse me, going off on a little tangent there. But basically, if the Buddhists said, we'd like to pay some money to get people to learn more about Buddhism, I'd have to say, I don't want your money for my boat, Buddhists. I think if people follow the path of the Buddha, they're making a terrible mistake.

And I would encourage them very much. Always good to pick the buddhists as an example because if you use a different religious group they might kill you with a knife or scientology style do something bad to your reputation not that i have anything bad to say about scientology and not that the Scientologists will ever have anything good to say in the advertising of this podcast. Religious advertising? Shut down. Political advertising?

Fine. Muslim banks? Would be fine if there's a separate category for Muslim banks as opposed to normal secular style banks but I don't know that there is. They only use version 1 taxonomy. I think because ACAS probably wants it to be as broad as possible

so that I err on the side of not blocking people. So basically, I just want to say, as we near the end of the pod, man, I had a bunch of, here was another idea I had. I thought, can I turn on the advertising in a narrow and limited sense and then just use the money from the advertising for a certain amount of time to buy shares in ACAST, the company that's hosting the podcast? I believe that, you know, having a podcast on that network, I have a vested interest in that podcast network a cast i you know i i am

working for it and with it and i pray that it has a good outcome and also that's maybe the only way that you get a fair hearing and can improve it i could start up my own podcast hosting platform and shop around and get other ads. But we're just not at that point in development, I don't think. So one theory that I did have is do I turn on the advertising, get less money because we've got a block list on possibly suspect businesses, and then use that money to buy Acast stock so that we can make decisions about how the podcast has ads in the future.

Then I looked up how many Acast stock there are. Man, there's a lot of Acast stock. It's about a dollar a stock. And there are just so many. It's quite hard to find out what share a share is, like if you buy one apple share is that one percent of apple no and all these companies have different amounts of shares but we don't think of them as being actual shares of a company because we're we're disconnected in that way we're not actually thinking about control of the company and making a good choice so So, after much research, I found that ACAST has 181 million outstanding shares, and each share is about one Australian dollar. So, to have a controlling stake in ACAST, I would have to buy a little over $90 million worth of stock, which would buy me 180 boats for anyone paying attention so i don't think but even then maybe it's worth having a share so that i can be at shareholder

meetings and talk to them it's something that i'm interested in looking into i'm not going to do it at the moment i don't think i looked at the people who do own Acast and are making the decisions. And it's just owned by people who own stuff. Like the Första Epifonden, which manages capital in Sweden's national income pension system, owns something like 10%. They own 17 million stocks in Acast. So really the people who decide whether or not the ads are appropriate, at the end of the day, it's bureaucrats who control shares in Sweden's pension system. I got far enough down the wormhole that I stopped caring.

Or rather, it became so depressing seeing how all these... Like, no one really owns ACAST. A bunch of people who have shares in certain things. It's not like the good old days where a guy just owns something. It's owned by many, many, many, many, many people so that they all get to have their boats. All of which is to say, in conclusion, the referendum was successful.

People want the ads. The ads are coming back on in previous and future episodes, but not this one and not the one where I talk about there not being any advertising. And we're going to earn less money from the ads than we otherwise would have because i'm going to attempt to only have good ads if you ever hear an ad on the james donald forbes mccann catamaran plan that you don't think should be on it please let a cast know You can let me know, but I'll almost certainly drop the ball. You can let the ACCC know if you're in Australia and you can let your, whatever country you're in,

there are standards that govern these things. I think, I mean, let's try taking the money and complaining. That's basically the conclusion that I have come to for the time being. But I'm open to revising that position and I would like to have a chat with the Good Money Boys in the near future. I will send them an email when I remember. But for the time being, thank you all very much. God bless you. Catamaran Ho. I hope I'm doing the right thing.