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Independent journalism in America has never been more vibrant, diverse, or democratic than it is right now. For the first time in modern history, a mother in Virginia, a veteran in Texas, or a teacher in Arizona can investigate, write, publish, and influence the public conversation without relocating to New York, courting institutional approval, or joining the club of credentialed media elites. They can build an audience on Instagram, publish investigative essays on Substack, break news on X, and crucially have readers support that work through payments on Stripe, Venmo, Patreon, or the many other fintech tools that now power the creator economy.
One of those voices is Rachel Reeves, a homeschooling mother of four whose Substack and Instagram platform, Here Are the Headlines, reaches more than 100,000 readers. “Come November 17th, it will be four years since I waded into the political commentary world,” she told me. What began as a single viral Instagram post, about being forced to wear a medical mask at a county pool during COVID, became something she never expected: an accidental career in journalism. As she put it, “being a homeschool mother of four children doesn’t exactly lend itself easily to a typical newsroom or traveling press pass.”
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And yet, she built a thriving media venture from her kitchen table, fueled not by legacy outlets or corporate advertisers, but by small-dollar readers and a payments system that allows independent voices to survive outside traditional media hierarchies.
“Substack provided me with an even better opportunity,” Reeves explained, “the chance to work in the political sphere from the comfort of my own home, on my own time.”
Reeves regularly finds herself at the big kids’ table: in meetings at the White House or with the Speaker of the House, all thanks to the work she’s accomplished in the independent media world.
What happened in her life is happening nationwide. A structural shift, the biggest since the advent of talk radio, has taken journalism out of the hands of a few powerful institutions and redistributed it among tens of thousands of creators. In many ways, it is the most authentically American media revolution in our history: bottom-up, entrepreneurial, messy, decentralized, and impossible to centrally control. But that revolution, and the financial infrastructure that sustains it, is now threatened by an obscure banking fight most citizens have never heard of.
At the center of that fight is Rule 1033, a provision of financial law that asks a seemingly simple question: Who owns your financial data — you or your bank? The answer may determine whether independent journalists can continue getting paid without permission from powerful institutions that once controlled all primary channels of information.
Rule 1033 originates in the Dodd-Frank Act, which directed regulators to ensure consumers have the right to share their own financial data with third-party services, whether that means allowing Venmo to connect to a checking account, enabling a crypto wallet to receive funds, or letting Stripe process a newsletter subscription. According to an industry briefing summarizing the rule, banks have opposed it for years because they prefer a world in which access to financial tools is routed through systems they own and control.
If banks can restrict that access, or charge others exorbitantly for it, they reestablish themselves as gatekeepers over the financial system and, by extension, many activities that now rely on independent payments infrastructure.
For years, Rule 1033 moved slowly through the regulatory process, pushed forward under one administration, finalized under another, then challenged by the banks in court. Recently, as the Washington Reporter has documented, K Street lobbyists and major financial institutions have mounted an aggressive effort to weaken or unwind the rule. Their goal is straightforward: limit how easily consumers can connect their bank data to independent apps and platforms, and impose “account access fees” on fintech companies that rely on these connections.
If implemented, platforms like Stripe or Venmo could be charged every time a user authorizes a payment, and those costs would quickly be passed down to creators. According to experts quoted in the Washington Reporter, these fees would “cripple innovation,” “kneecap competition,” and “lock Americans into legacy financial systems.” If banks succeed, the fintech platforms that made the creator economy possible will become too expensive to operate or too costly to use.
That may sound like a distant fight over obscure policy. It isn’t. It comes down to whether independent voices will continue to have a viable business model.
Reeves intuitively understands this. Her work is not funded by a hedge fund, foundation, or corporate advertiser; it is sustained by the direct financial support of ordinary readers.
“Without alternative banking options that fuel platforms like Substack,” she told me, “voices like mine would likely be sidelined.”
If a bank-driven fee structure makes it too expensive for Stripe to serve small creators or if banking restrictions make it harder for consumers to authorize payments, the independent media economy will collapse. The moment that happens, the vacuum will be filled by precisely the institutions Americans have been fleeing in record numbers.
The connection between banking infrastructure and speech might seem indirect, but history shows otherwise. Those who control financial rails often end up controlling public discourse. We have already seen “debanking” scandals, pressure campaigns, and blacklists. Payment processors have refused service to authors, publishers, whistleblowers, dissidents, and controversial commentators. The Washington Reporter also noted that advocates fear repealing or rewriting Rule 1033 could “bring financial freedom and innovation to a screeching halt,” especially for emerging technologies that challenge establishment interests.
This is why the fight over Rule 1033 is bigger than journalism, fintech, and partisan politics. It is about whether Americans will retain the ability to participate in public life without permission from centralized institutions. If banks can price fintech platforms out of the market, they don’t need to ban anyone. They can simply starve independent creators of oxygen.
Rachel’s journey makes this concrete. “In a relatively short time,” she told me, “I’ve grown a community of over 100K followers who value honest journalism, hard work, and alternative viewpoints.” Her readers are not just customers; they are citizens searching for reporting and analysis that isn’t shaped by corporate interests or filtered through legacy newsrooms. They are supporting her for one reason: they trust her. And she can do this work for one reason: she can get paid directly by them through systems the banks don’t control.
If Rule 1033 is gutted and account access fees become the norm, that freedom will disappear. A handful of giant banks will regain the power to decide which platforms survive, which voices can sustain themselves, and which conversations get heard. The Washington Reporter has warned that this approach could undermine America’s competitiveness in crypto, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies. But the threat goes deeper than economics. It goes to the heart of democratic culture.
A truly free press is not defined by how many newspapers exist or how many TV channels operate. It is determined by whether citizens can speak, report, publish, and challenge power without having to ask permission from systems designed to exclude them. The independent media revolution of the last five years has proven that Americans still want genuine pluralism, not the illusion of debate between two corporate newsrooms, but the genuine cacophony of millions of voices, viewpoints, and investigative impulses.
Undoing Rule 1033 would reverse that revolution. It would be a return to gatekeeping, not the newsroom kind, but the financial kind. And financial gatekeeping is harder to spot, easier to justify, and far more devastating in its effect. If creators can’t get paid, they can’t publish. It really is that simple.
Rachel called the second income she earns “a wonderful bonus.” But she emphasized something else: her platform gives a voice to a community that “yearns to break free from the archaic legacy media landscape.” That yearning is not marginal. It is mainstream. Tens of millions of Americans across the political spectrum who no longer trust centralized institutions to curate reality on their behalf.
Congress, regulators, and the public should defend open banking, reject the access-fee model, and protect the payment rails that sustain independent journalism. The future of American speech depends on whether our financial infrastructure remains open, not just for commerce but for communication. Because in the 21st century, speech and payments are intertwined. You cannot meaningfully protect the first without protecting the second.
We stand at a pivotal moment. The banks are betting the public will never notice a technical regulation buried in financial law. The lobbyists are betting journalists won’t connect the dots between open banking and a free press. They believe this fight can be won quietly, behind closed doors. They think Americans won’t understand what they’ve lost until it’s too late.
But they are wrong. People like Rachel are proof. Independent journalism is not a hobby or a fringe phenomenon. It is the new public square. And if we allow banks to control access to that square, then everything we have gained, every new voice, every dissenting viewpoint, every act of journalistic courage done outside the legacy system, will be at risk.
We have come too far and built too much to hand the keys back to the gatekeepers. The future of free speech and American innovation depends on ensuring that Rule 1033 remains true to its original purpose: empowering citizens, not institutions. A press that must ask permission to get paid is not free. And a nation that cannot sustain independent voices is not free.
