I don’t want your email

I don’t know who reads this. I don’t know how they find it. I don’t know if they’ll ever come back. I don’t know a damned thing. And that’s by design. I value my privacy and by extension, I value others’. That’s exactly why I don’t have newsletters. The last thing I want is someone’s email.

This blog is a place to get things out of my head. I write for myself. Putting it on display provides just enough social pressure to give it that much more care. But it’d be fine if it was read by no one. I won’t lie–that wasn’t always the case. It took me a lot of years to grind that desire out of me.

Social media platforms were supposed to the way for anyone to grow an audience. For many, dare I say most, the goal was simply to be seen. To fulfill a need to feel validated. And man, has social media preyed on that need.

Speaking of preying. Social media has also preyed on the tale as old as time: “you can become the next big thing”. Many folks got caught in the trap that they just might be able to make a living by making content. And just like every other road to fame, 99.9% of them didn’t.

What was once a snowball’s chance in hell is now even harder. We’ve seen a slow-motion rugpull for the past decade. Platform algorithms increasingly have more sway on content consumption. A creator’s “audience” means less than ever. Now that 99.9% looks more like 99.999%.

In response, we’ve seen a small, yet steady push towards independence. Content creators are experimenting with newsletters to distribute content. I get it–newsletters give creators the ability to have a direct line to their followers. No algorithms, just a direct line.

The problem is, it’s still flawed. First, there continues to be a middleman. There seems to always be a middleman nowadays. It’s easy to see for plaforms like Substack because they are the middleman. And that middleman can change their rules at a moment’s notice. Even “independent” newsletters use services like Mailchimp or whatever other newsletter services exist. Those too are middlemen that can also change the terms as they see fit.

The second and more essential issue is that the overwhelmingly vast majority of creator will never make real money. All the while, the people trying to consume content deal with layers, and layers, and layers of bullshit. Privacy issues, invasive advertising, increasingly aggressive dark patterns. All to make 30 cents in revenue. Which, begs the question, “Why even try?”

I understand the desire to grow an audience. I also understand the desire to know who your audience is. Even more so, I understand the desire to be in more control of your own destiny. But that desire comes with some serious strings. And when you cut those strings, things get incredibly simpler for everyone.

I’ll never grow a following or make a dime from this blog. That’s just fine. It keeps things clean and easy. I have a simple site that I pay nothing to host. I have no aspirations beyond what this currently is. I write the things I want to write. People may read it. If they do, awesome. If they don’t, whatever. It’s freeing.

But who cares about how I feel. More importantly, this approach respects readers. They’re not tracked. They’re not bothered with ads. There are no stupid GDPR labyrinths. None of their personal information is stored. They come, they read, they leave. That’s it.

I don’t think it’s wrong that people want to have their content seen. It’s completely logical to want a payoff for what they create. None of that in itself is “bad”. But in our current day and age, it can come with some pretty nasty consequences. We should at least go into that with our eyes wide open.

I don’t want anyone’s email. Even more so, I don’t want anyone to want to give me their email. Frankly, I want us to give less.