Acts of God

What happens if this place goes dark

One person runs this platform. Me, by hand, on purpose. So you're owed a straight answer to the question every small platform hopes you never ask: what happens if the truck finds him?

Your money was never here.

Readers pay through Stripe directly into the writer's own Stripe account. This platform never holds a balance, never runs an escrow, never sits between a sale and a payout. If the whole site evaporated at midnight, every dollar already earned would still be where it always was: in the writer's account, at the writer's bank. There is nothing to claw back because nothing was ever held.

Your work was never hostage.

Every writer can export everything, any day, in one click: every post, the full subscriber list, the whole account in a ZIP that opens anywhere. You don't need my permission and you don't need a reason. Take a copy this afternoon if it helps you sleep. I would.

Buyers keep what they bought.

An unlocked post stays unlocked. Bought access survives the writer leaving, and it would survive this place winding down. All sales are final here, and final runs in both directions: no refunds, and no takebacks either.

If the doors ever close on purpose.

You get told first, in plain words, with at least 90 days' notice. The site goes read-only. Every writer gets a final full export. Buyers keep access through the whole window, with downloads switched on so you can carry your purchases out the door. No vanishing act, no "sunsetting the experience" email at 2 a.m.

Why this page exists.

Big platforms don't write this page. They'd rather you assume they're immortal, and you've watched enough of them die to know better. The truck might come. The design assumes it will: your money already lives in your account, your work already fits in a ZIP, and your purchases already survive me. I think about the truck so you only have to think about it once. This was the once.

The fee pledge

The whole fee table, in one breath: 3% on paid unlocks. Nothing on tips. Nothing on your newsletter, your subscribers, or your free posts. On a $5 unlock, about $4.85 lands in your Stripe account, and Stripe's own card fee is the only other hand in the till.

Why 3% is enough.

Membership pays the bills here. Your monthly dues cover the hosting, the rail, and my time; the 3% covers the cost of moving money, and that's all it has to do. There are no investors waiting on a growth number, so nobody upstairs is leaning on me to squeeze a number out of you. The lights are cheap. Membership keeps them on.

The promise, shaped honest.

You've watched platforms swear a fee was permanent, then flip it overnight and call it simplification. So you won't get "3% forever" from me. Forever is how platforms lie. What I will put in writing:

• If the fee ever changes, existing members are grandfathered. The deal you joined under is the deal you keep.
• Any change comes with months of written notice before a single percentage point moves. No silent flips. Nobody wakes up to a new number.

That's a smaller promise than forever, and it's one you can hold me to. Dated, signed, and short enough to screenshot.

The ceiling we didn't build.

Writing here is open to anyone in a country Stripe supports. That's Stripe's map. The whole design routes money straight into your own Stripe account, so where Stripe can't go, I can't pay you, and I won't pretend otherwise. Bolting a second payment rail into the middle of your money would break the one promise this platform is built on, so for now the ceiling stands, stated plainly.

What closes a storefront, and what never will

Decided once, written down, enforced by a human. All four rules fit on this page.

Four things close a storefront.

• Scams. Selling work you don't deliver, or promising what the post doesn't contain.
• Stolen work. Publishing someone else's writing as your own, or paywalling pirated material.
• Illegal content. No elaboration needed and none coming.
• Spam. The caps mostly handle this one already: five posts a day, two sends a day, double opt-in only. This place was built so spam can't pay. Anyone grinding against those caps hard enough to matter has told me everything I need to know.

What never will.

Weird is fine. Controversial is fine. Unpopular, niche, heretical, out of season: fine. This is the underground, and strange is the point. Nobody loses a storefront here for an opinion, a genre, a subject that makes people flinch, or a pile of one-star reviews. If the work is legal, it's yours, and it does what the paywall says it does, you stay open, and I'll take the angry emails.

How it happens.

No algorithm flags you and no automated strike counter ticks in the dark. If a storefront crosses a line, a human reads the work first. Me. Then, in order:

• You get told which rule and why, in plain words. No form letter pointing at "our policies."
• Your storefront goes dark, but your data doesn't burn with it. You get a full ZIP of everything: posts, subscribers, all of it.
• Whatever remains on my systems is purged within 60 days. Sooner if you ask.
• Your buyers keep access to everything they bought from you. Your exit is never their loss.

These rules were decided in daylight, before anyone broke them, and they don't bend to mood or headlines. If they ever change, this page changes first, out loud.

Money never touches us

Your card talks to Stripe. Stripe talks to the writer's bank. This platform is not in the middle of that conversation. We never hold your money, so we can't freeze it, can't lose it, and can't fold with it in our pocket. It was never here.

The writer is the merchant on this sale. Our 3% is collected by Stripe at the moment of charge, the way a card fee is, and it never passes through our hands either. Tips go to the writer whole: 100% theirs, 0% ours.

It also means refunds are not ours to give. This is digital work, all sales are final, and the sale itself is between you and the writer, like the paywall says.

The only company you're trusting with a card number is Stripe, the same processor you've already used a hundred times this year without reading its name.