I love your website. I stumble upon it again every other year and I'm always amazed by the quality of the content and writing. I was reading your articles on my Windows Mobile phone, ages ago!

Have you also had a decline in traffic in the last 18 months? It seems like the entire independent web is getting strangled out.

Thanks! We had our 20th birthday earlier this year, so we've certainly been around for some vintage devices. Over the years our primary audience moved from desktop web browsers to mostly mobile readers, and now our largest audience is podcast listeners.

Site traffic is indeed down in recent years. The largest decline was when Facebook introduced "boosting," and stopped showing our posts to 90%+ of our Facebook followers overnight. I despise advertising, so I was unwilling to cave to their demand to "boost" our posts into ads. I'd have been happy to pay a reasonable monthly fee to reach our audience there, but that option was never available.

That big dip in traffic came with a big dip in donations, and as a consequence I eventually had to move from a part-time day job to full-time. The sharp reduction in free my time led to a sharp reduction in original content on Damn Interesting, which further shrunk the pool of people willing to donate.

This is a spiral that some would classify as "death," if I were willing to let it die. But it settled into an equilibrium where it pays for itself, makes a modest profit, and remains rewarding. Frankly I'd probably still do it even if donations dried up entirely, the research and writing give me a sense of purpose that would be difficult to replace.

I used to hope that a wealthy benefactor would discover us, and decide to fully fund our project for a few years, giving us space to realize more of the project's potential. But such offers come with strings attached, and I don't have the stomach for most of those. Perhaps I am broken.

I love this site - have you considered monetizing with like e-books or other offline offerings, if you don't already?

Also, your traffic might not be counting those of us like myself who use an RSS feed (a la Feedly) - those links don't go to your site, they just go to, well, the link. =)

Thanks! We do indeed have a sort of e-book monetization; donating above certain thresholds gives one access to download an e-book version of our entire catalog.

And true enough that RSS traffic is largely uncounted, but there are many other indications of reduced visitor count--server-side logs, comment count on original content, number of email subscribers, and that sort of thing.

This is how I fear my own website will be if the trend continues. Platforms gave, and now they're taking away.

At least what you have built will endure. Even if your invested just enough to keep the lights on, you would still have a trove of fascinating content. It's something to be proud of.

Is this an ad or a question?

I would say domain knowledge and experience. I've been in my industry for long enough to spot situations where my work will have disproportionate impact. The longer I am in this industry, the more knowledge, contacts and followers I have, so I can be very effective at building things, getting them validated, and finding users for it.

It’s a bit of both.

I’m not in the industry or part of a company yet—I’m still on the younger side.

I’ve had many ideas and I work on them, but nothing really takes off. I keep coming back to the same question: is this worth it? Especially because every idea I have, I run it by my friends—they love it, I build it, they don’t use it, and I’m left with a dead project, a half-empty wallet, and goals I could have pushed further with if I hadn't taken up the project.

Bit of an ad because I am trying my best to get my product out there everywhere.

That’s in poor taste.

> Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.

Got your point, I’m done with the promotion now. Pivoting to curiosity related stuff

It's an ad.

You can tell because the product answers OP's question.

So the news here is that you got a hundred visitors from ChatGPT this month?

It sounds like a Ted Talk with unnecessarily long poses to let sentences sink in. For some reason I just can't digest this sort of writing.

Thin desires are mental snacking. Thick desires are a full meal.

I find it hard because thick desires require a lot more activation energy before it becomes pleasant.

When I come across this sort of writing I skip it. If the writer can't be bothered to organise their ideas I won't do it for them. I find that writing style oddly grating.

A blog is a place to share things you care about with others. It's a place on the internet that you own. You choose the topic and the format, and no one can stop you. Above all, it's accessible to everyone, not just those on a specific platform.

I've had a blog for almost 20 years. Nowadays, it's the best record I have of what I'm interested in and working on. It has recipes I send to my friends, context for strangers. It's a beacon that attracts similar people, a call for them to reach out.

And it works! I get emails about my posts. I helped people travel along the same routes, and fixed people's technical issues.

Another blog of mine turned into a lifestyle business. I have met countless friends and two lovers through it.

So yeah, do your thing, put it online. Start simple, migrate as needed. I love static sites because they're low maintenance. Hugo and a theme would be good.

Could you share the lifestyle business site?

> no one can stop you

(offer not valid in UK)

I have been following that website a while. The curation is great, but the UI is annoying. I can’t easily right click or long press to share with Instapaper. I can’t scroll past the ones I have already seen. A list of links would be much better.

The testimonials section is adorable

I maintain a list of things I have done here: https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/silence

I love the design and content. Keep writing Nicolas