Because, Sully, I'm going to deconstruct your farewell post just like I was PolitiFact.
Let's start here:
(W)e experienced 9/11 together in real time – and all the fraught months and years after; and then the Iraq War; and the gay marriage struggles of the last fifteen historic years. We endured the Bush re-election together
You were there when I couldn’t believe Palin’s fantasies.
You were there when … we live-blogged the Green Revolution for an entire month.
His last post says he was making $1
million revenue/year. Now, deducting for assistance (staff of about 10 at peak, perhaps;
7 non-Sully plus one intern listed now) ... overhead, etc., could he afford all this? Assume Sully paid
himself $150K. The seven others, on average, about $80K. That’s $700K; whatever
he paid the intern and overhead... yea, he was making money. Maybe not as rich
as whatever Atlantic paid him before, but I don’t think he was going broke.
On the other hand, a WaPost story says he took no salary in the first year. And, it's not clear how well he maintained his renewal rate. Matthew Ingram talked about some of this early on.
On the third hand, he doesn't mention finances as a reason to throw in the towel.
Beyond that, I don't get why he had so many followers.
Half of what he posted was too short for even a Tumblr. That's why, beyond not agreeing with much of what he said, I don't get why that many people would pay to read him. In that way, he reminded me of Duncan Black, aka Atrios, running the blog Eschaton, which, while more liberal than Sully, years ago became just as short if not shorter on a regular basis.
On the other hand, a WaPost story says he took no salary in the first year. And, it's not clear how well he maintained his renewal rate. Matthew Ingram talked about some of this early on.
On the third hand, he doesn't mention finances as a reason to throw in the towel.
Beyond that, I don't get why he had so many followers.
Half of what he posted was too short for even a Tumblr. That's why, beyond not agreeing with much of what he said, I don't get why that many people would pay to read him. In that way, he reminded me of Duncan Black, aka Atrios, running the blog Eschaton, which, while more liberal than Sully, years ago became just as short if not shorter on a regular basis.
The only sidebar to this is that it shows his vaunted tip jar/self-subscription model for blogging may not be such a model. Here is my original thoughts on his setting up his subscription model riff on a tip jar. I didn't think about it at the time, but, on the model he proposed, it's "interesting" that he missed the whole "tragedy of the commons" angle.
Actually, it's not "interesting" — it's really a "no duh." Libertarian types in general refuse to acknowledge such a thing even exist. I love the sound of petards hoisting in the morning!
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