Tim BrayWas wondering about the surge in my server logs…
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/01/opinion/blockchains-what-are-they-good-for.html
There was a brief mention of, and link to, my piece on AWS & Blockchain by Paul Krugman in the NY Times yesterday. So, here's a guessing game. How many hits to my blog do you think that kind of link generates?
0-100
100-1,000
1,000-10,000
Poll ended at .
When I posted that yesterday, the count was: 14.
As of now, it's 48.
Factors:
- NYT is paywalled.
- It was a pretty long piece and the link was well below the fold
- I've repeatedly heard it said that less than 10% of links are followed.
- By reading Krugman's sentence you knew pretty well what the blog piece was going to say.
Still, not a big number.
Methodology: zcat ../log/access_log.* | cat - ../log/access_log | egrep 'GET /ongoing/When/202x/2022/11/19/AWS-Blockchain.*nytimes' | wc -l
Karl Auerbach@timbray - I also find paywalls annoying. But decent journalism takes $$, so for those of us who can, we should cheerfully subscribe and pay the monthly fees.
leemeade@karlauerbach @timbray not for the nytimes. nope.
@leemeade @timbray - We subscribe (and pay) for Guardian, The Atlantic, NYT, WaPo, San Jose Mercury, and a couple of others.
Yes, many journalists and editors have fallen into a "fair and balanced" trap that requires correction. But if we don't provide support, even for those who may wobble a bit, all we will have left are partisan hacks.
@karlauerbach @timbray I do ChiTrib, ChiSunTimes, ChicagoReader, NewYorker, Vanity Fair, Atlantic. Guardian has gotten some money in the past and will again.