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31 Mar, 5 tweets, 1 min read
I've gotten a number of replies from customers who tell me they are philosophically opposed to subscription services, but want to support me and would be willing to make periodic donations to the site, especially if I reminded them about it every year or so. 🧐
An observation I made in 2009 still holds true today—people approach a $20 online purchase with the same seriousness, research, and depth of reflection that they would if buying a house or fantastically expensive Italian luxury car
More than one person told me they have to talk it over with their wife, and will make a decision in a few weeks' time. Dude, if converting requires a family meeting and a long, tearful phone call with your pastor, just stay on the one-time plan. You're freaking me out a little.
(I explain to the people who are philosophically opposed to paying for an online archive that I am philosophically opposed to not taking their money)
I also hear from people who are unemployed or long-term ill but will try to scrape together a few bucks to upgrade to a regular subscription. No! Let me squeeze it out of the philosophical ones instead. Please don't turn the thermostat down so you can afford bookmarking

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Pinboard Profile picture
30 Mar
Our new business model for writers is so sustainable that we're raising $65 million to continue to run it at a massive loss
Substack reminds me of the early days of Blue Apron, where you could get really amazing cuts of meat or fish home delivered at a fraction of their cost because the company was burning money to build market share. The trick is always to know when to get off the Wheel of VC in time
All that's missing from the Substack business model is a feature where, once you get people to sign up, part of the money that comes in from subscribers they bring in later accrues to you Screenshot of the "pyramid scheme" scene from The
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28 Mar
Everyone's going on about how serious incidents (like Suez or the Texas blackouts) show that we're too reliant on complex systems. But these incidents are also the only way to build resilience in such systems. We need more of them, at far lower severity nytimes.com/2021/03/26/bus…
The only complex system you should trust is one that breaks all the time, at all scales, and where those breakdowns are routine and the mitigation for it well developed. Never put your data on a server with ten years of uptime
The human response to any functioning complex system is to pile on additional complexity until it breaks catastrophically. So a steady rate of breakdowns, big and small, is the only reassurance that you aren't piling up massive levels of risk somewhere
Read 5 tweets
Pinboard Profile picture
25 Mar
In today's email, someone who paid a $7.75 one-time fee to use Pinboard in 2010 is threatening me with a class-action lawsuit for asking them, 11 years in, to consider switching to a subscription plan. Supportive emails outnumber angry ones 100:1, but the latter bring me true ha
I also got called settler trash by a Canadian(!) user who told me I am a "white supremacist piece of shit who should return to whatever neo-Nazi-infested gutter I oozed out of", but disguised their email so they could keep using the site, which they like. It's a good site!
For the record, I am not a settler, I've just been putting off going home for 39 years.
Read 4 tweets
Pinboard Profile picture
24 Mar
The number of sea shanties being sung about GameStop is a larger positive integer than I would have expected in 2019 reddit.com/r/wallstreetbe…
Previously:
The GameStop frenzy feels like a cultural seed crystal for something Gamergate-like, although far less toxic so far than that was. But the deep emotional roots of childhood video games combine with young adults confronting 2021 elite failure in what are clearly fascinating ways.
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Pinboard Profile picture
23 Mar
Clubhouse should merge with Nest and hook into all the thermostat microphones. Instant mass adoption plus killer business model (selling blocks of microphone downtime). It would also allow neat haptic UX touches—as the discussion in a room gets heated, turn up the temperature
Could also create automatic real-time communities linking rooms that are at the same temperature over voice chat. "Turn it down to 59 degrees, I don't want anyone else to hear us"
Why am I not a VC
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Pinboard Profile picture
22 Mar
Google in January: "“We have frozen all NetPAC political contributions while we review and reassess its policies following last week’s deeply troubling events"

Google in February: Screenshot of Google's $5000 donation to "Promoting Our
I guess the review went well
The "Promoting Our Republican Team PAC" made a $10,000 maximum donation to Trump in 2020, and gave money to two senators and six congressmen who voted to overturn the Presidential election. So I'm kind of curious about the rigors of Google's NetPAC's review process.
Read 4 tweets

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