The Shmoo Diaries, Chapter 4: From a Small Gate to the Only Gate That Matters

Hi everyone, how’s your week going? 

Mine’s been one of those weeks where you notice the invisible rules around you. The things that feel normal, until you realize they quietly decide who succeeds and who doesn’t.

I started as a gatekeeper of a small gate. As the company grew, so did the gate. As responsibilities expanded, the consequences became clearer, yet they were always measured against what the market and the system could handle.

In the earlier chapters of The Shmoo Diaries, I've been circling a simple idea: When abundance shows up, systems built on scarcity don't adapt gracefully. They tighten. They consolidate. They look for ways to control what they can no longer own.

The Shmoo was hunted not because it was dangerous, but because it made too much possible.

Sound familiar?

This chapter is about what that looks like from inside the gate.

How the Gate Actually Worked

In the magazine business, nothing existed until a distributor said yes.

If a distributor didn't take a magazine on, it wasn't debated, rejected, or critiqued. It never entered the system. It never had the chance to fail.

That was the first and most important decision.

If the answer was yes, copies were allocated and shipped. Most retailers were not asked in advance. Bundles arrived. Only then did judgment happen. The retailer could put the magazine on the rack or send it straight back.

For a long time, that system worked. It was tough and unforgiving, but it allowed experimentation. It allowed niche, risky, and strange ideas to exist long enough to find an audience.

That was the small gate I started with.

But gates don’t stay small.

When Viability Replaces Possibility

As distribution consolidated and retailers grew more powerful, legitimacy moved upstream. Large chains required permission in advance. Buyers decided what was allowed in at all.

That was the shift.

The question stopped being whether a magazine was good.

The question became whether it was viable.

Viable meant predictable. Viable meant scalable. Viable meant it wouldn’t disrupt the machinery already in place.

Hope didn’t matter. Quality didn’t matter. Intent didn’t matter.

Viability did.

This is the Morgan calculation in practice. Not greed. Not cruelty. Responsibility filtered through a system that punishes uncertainty and rewards predictability.

I didn’t own the railroads, but I controlled access to the tracks.

Shelf space is finite. Racks don’t expand to accommodate ideals. Better magazines were pushed out by safer ones, not because they were worse, but because they couldn’t survive the math.

That’s how abundance gets narrowed without being banned.

The Shmoo Problem, Repeating Itself

In earlier chapters, I wrote about the Shmoo as a symbol of abundance arriving before society was ready to handle it.

What I didn’t say explicitly then is this: the Shmoo didn’t fail because it disrupted work. It failed because it disrupted control.

The magazine industry didn’t collapse because people stopped reading. It collapsed because, when abundance appeared in the form of more voices, more titles, more perspectives, the system responded by tightening gates instead of rethinking itself.

Boundaries were broken. Publishers caved to retailer pressure. Distributors consolidated. Everyone ran their own numbers. No one protected the ecosystem.

The result wasn’t a dramatic collapse. It was erosion.

Secondary magazines disappeared first. Then niche categories. Racks shrank. Risk tolerance vanished. Sameness replaced distinction. From the outside, it looked like market forces. From the inside, it was control masquerading as necessity.

That’s why the Shmoo matters. And that’s why AI matters even more.

Why AI Is a Different Order of Moment

Artificial intelligence is not just another technological shift. It is a pivotal moment in history, because it collapses the cost of thinking itself.

It puts serious thinking power into far more hands than ever before, without asking permission first.

For the first time, writing, analysis, design, research, and strategy are no longer locked inside institutions. This should flatten the hierarchy. It should widen opportunities. It should allow ideas to prove themselves in the open.

Instead, we’re rebuilding gates faster than the abundance can spread.

Today’s gatekeepers aren’t distributors or buyers. They are J.P. Morgan 2,0  

Their decisions don't determine which products move. They determine which thoughts form.

When I said no to a magazine, a title didn't move through a system. When AI gatekeepers say no, entire lines of inquiry never take shape.

The justifications sound familiar. Safety. Ethics. Quality. Responsibility.

Each makes sense on its own. Together, they form a permission structure where capability is no longer enough. You can create, but only in approved ways. You can think, but only within defined bounds.

This is how control adapts when ownership alone is no longer sufficient.

Why I’m Writing This Now

I recognize this pattern because I lived its earlier version.

Gatekeepers don’t see themselves as suppressing possibilities. They see themselves as keeping systems stable. They’re rewarded for predictability and punished for deviation. Over time, they internalize the limits of the system and begin enforcing them instinctively.

Eventually, risk becomes synonymous with danger. That’s the real threat we’re facing now.

AI is too important to be governed primarily by gatekeeping logic. Limiting access doesn’t make society safer. It concentrates power and freezes hierarchy in place.

The Shmoo didn’t die because abundance was impossible. It died because society didn’t know how to live with it.

We’re being tested again.

Back then, abundance threatened logistics. Now, abundance threatens authority.

The question isn’t whether gates will exist. It’s how large we allow them to become, who controls them, and whether we recognize the pattern while there’s still room to choose differently.

Next in The Shmoo Diaries: The final chapter, What it would actually mean to let abundance work — and why systems rarely allow it to happen.

Warmly,

Jan

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