From what you hear it’s that they have bills to pay. If a publisher doesn’t know your name, they’re not going to assume it’s an automatic best-seller so they’re less likely to actually look at your work to see if it’s worth it.

Also, to pay your bills before the publisher actually prints the book, you have to find one way ahead of you finishing the book, meaning that you have to send them an unfinished manuscript, further hurting your chances - but if they like it you get that money before it’s done, with the caveat that they’re gonna sue if you don’t deliver.

Zero-cost abstractions!

Small niche subs are the only reason I’m still using reddit. Not the main subs, again bots are the problem, but small niches are unfortunately slow to migrate to an entirely new platform because it’s not guaranteed that the community comes with it (unlike large generic subs like memes, which has a very general audience)