For some time now I’ve wanted to build Virtual Pulp’s own online bookstore (rather than just pages of affiliate links). At least with our own cyber-needle in the online haystack, there’s a chance people could find our books once we’re censored off other platforms (until the money-changers also get into the act). But that’s just a measure that could benefit VP.

If people like us hope to continue selling books after Big Tech does what they are proving to us they fully intend to do, we need to throw in with each other and build a platform that they can’t control, with servers they can’t shut down, hosting they can’t deny, and payment methods they can’t yank out from under us.

How many more of our allies do we need to see censored, deplatformed, or demonetized before we accept that this is necessary? Necessary enough to start making it happen?

If somebody on our side had the skills to build a Paypal alternative, for instance, we could all start using it right away, but it wouldn’t have to compete with Paypal. By that I mean it’s doubtful it could seize a big chunk of the marketshare right away…but we wouldn’t have to try. When authors (and others) find themselves stripped of the ability to express their ideas (and/or feed their families) they will suddenly be motivated to recognize the situation and find a payment engine that is not converged. If we have our own established before it becomes impossible to establish, then no advertising is necessary–all they need to know is that it exists. (Of course that highlights the need for non-converged search engines.)

I’m neither a business savant nor a software engineer, but I know there are plenty of them out there who are not rabid cultural Marxists, and could help us make this happen. The most daunting obstacle to an enterprise like this is, as some of you know, herding the cats. Could we muster a little bit of solidarity for long enough to work toward a long-term safeguard that is desperately needed by all of us who think for ourselves? Could enough of us overcome our normalcy bias and stop chanting, “It can’t happen here! It can’t happen here!” to open our eyes and see that it is, in fact, happening here and we need to act fast?

Castalia House has begun making some preparations along these lines, and Virtual Pulp has backed some of their endeavors. But when it comes to selling books, most of their efforts have been focused on their own preservation, which is understandable. They are not responsible for rescuing anybody outside the walls of their own tent.

I hope to start working on the VP store this summer, and perhaps further down the road we will welcome other authors into our brand, if they want to join us and write the sort of stuff we want to publish. But the problem–and the solution needed–is of a scope that dwarfs Virtual Pulp (and Castalia House, Superversive, etc.) and anything we can accomplish by ourselves…by orders of magnitude.

For what it’s worth, I’m willing to participate in such an endeavor in any capacity I can be helpful.

How long are you going to balk at taking action–until it’s too late?

How do you assume this is going to be resolved? Maybe the power of your positive thinking will miraculously transform reality into a world where you won’t have to make sacrifices or run the risk of offending somebody. Maybe the likes of Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney and Mitch McConnell will ride to your rescue so you won’t have to lift a finger.

If you believed any of that, you probably wouldn’t have read this far. So what do you think?