Some notes on that reader survey
Late last month I conducted a little survey of you, dear readers — in part to see how I can improve your experience on this site, and in part just out of curiosity. Somehow it did not occur to me at the time that when you ask people to fill one of these things out, they typically want to know what my takeaways from the survey are. So for the hell of it, I thought I would highlight some of the more interesting responses.
TAKEAWAY #1: Most active readers are subscribers!
When you run a site like this with a paid tier and a free tier, the overwhelming majority just sign up for the free tier and then never read. It’s just a reality of online, and I always assumed that this trend would hold for active readers as well. But if this poll is any indication, it looks like a slim plurality of you are actually on the paid tier! I take this as a massive compliment — it just isn’t how sites like this usually work. Thanks so much to everyone, paid and free tier subscribers alike. I’m just grateful for the chance to share my ideas with so many people.
TAKEAWAY #2: You’ll never guess the politics of my readers…
Most of you, get this, are either socialists or communists. But the really funny group here is the tiny sliver of capitalists. I know that I have a few guys on the hard right who surveil this site regularly, but why on earth would they fill out this survey? LOL
TAKEAWAY #3: Media drama is overrated
Most of this is as expected, but given how much of modern left media revolves around media drama — particularly among streamers — I’m a bit surprised to see that people really don’t care about it all that much. And relieved, because I don’t care about it all that much either.
OTHER NOTES
Since this poll came shortly after my ban on Twitter, a lot of you asked how you can follow me on social media now. The short answer is nowhere. Long answer: if you’d like a feed of my posts on social media, you can now find me on Bluesky, Mastodon, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and Substack Notes. Those handles are on the homepage in the left sidebar. But for now at least I’m not devoting any kind of personal time to posting outside of this blog.
Some of you asked how you can donate on top of your subscription, so I have added a Paypal link to the top of the page. But please bear in mind that I can’t set it up to automatically subscribe Paypal donors, so if you want a subscription to this site please go through the subscribe button.
I am still toying with maintaining a podcast feed of me reading the articles for people who like to listen rather than read, but it really is a massive pain. I think it’ll happen eventually though, so stay tuned.