A project that only has backstoppers will tend to go on indefinitely but mediocrely — an outcome that is undervalued. But to the extent that’s not enough, backstoppers do appreciate the less reliable drive-by participation of non-backstoppers, who can often level up a thing.
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Backstoppers tend to mess up “rational” effort/reward accounting, because often they put in, and are seen to put in, Herculean survival-ensuring efforts at critical junctures. Even if they do do freely, it can cause others to feel guilty/resentful.
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So it takes some wisdom to backstop lightly, and ensure that your “extra” efforts are simply left out of regular accounting and treated as gifts. If you don’t actively work to have your surge contributions treated as gifts, you’ll destroy the effort with psyche debt.
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Thus doesn’t mean you can’t participate in rewards. Backstoppers aren’t bodhisattvas. They are simply graceful about separating their gift-like contributions from their accounted contributions. And anyone with moderate success past say 40 has the resources to tag >0% as gifts.
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It’s hard to write a thread like this without coming across as attacking creators, but that’s really not my intent. Creators who are genuinely committed to their Thing, tend not to be narcissistic flakes, but occasionally react like they are due to being taken advantage of.
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This is partly underdeveloped political instincts. The trick for creators is to develop enough political instincts to avoid being taken advantage of WITHOUT losing your capacity to also do the generous gift backstopping thing when/where you do have the spare reserves.
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Hehe nice gotcha :) But not all projects are collaborative. 70% of my projects are solo, and for those yes, hell is other people applies. This thread is about collaborative projects.
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Replying to @vgr
How do you reconcile "backstopper economy" in context with your earlier Maker studio, where you wrote, "On the maker end of the studio barbell economy, hell is other people."?
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Another way to think of backstoppers is as deep players (Geertz) or infinite gamers. People who play to continue the game.
Fundamentally different mindset, needed to get through “game singularities” when finite game shifts and shallow players hit division by zero error states.
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A lot of people blaming extractive investor discourses for inventing this “creator economy” but while that plays a part, there’s a real thing here; there really are people with natural creator personalities. They just can’t serve as pillars of an economy.
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There’s some rhyming with the lionizing of entrepreneurs a decade ago that led me to write my “entrepreneurs are the new labor” series. But then as now, extractive attention can’t operate without a natural foundation in a Type of Person.
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Turned this into a post (paywalled)
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New Ribbonfarm Studio subscriber post, The Backstopper Economy
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This is very true.
Hard to know if someone is a backstopper or opportunist until the shit hits the fan.
Ideal co-founder level collaborators are creator-backstoppers. But they are either hard to find or turn out to be opportunists in disguise.
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This sounds like volunteer engagement patterns. Is there for-pay backstopping? Do you hire BaaS?
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In one of the Star Trek movies, Scotty's nephew comes aboard. Uncle is so proud. An emergency happens, and nephew dies because.... he stayed at his post to help others. Be that guy, there'll be no songs for you, but be that guy.







