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I established DamnInteresting.com in 2005, a place where myself and handful of others produce original long-form non-fiction in article and podcast form. Despit
by DamnInteresting 8y ago
I established DamnInteresting.com in 2005, a place where myself and handful of others produce original long-form non-fiction in article and podcast form. Despite plenty of traffic, it didn't reach the break-even point for several years, because I despise advertisements and I refused to add them to my site. I funded the project in other ways, such as donations, publishing a book, licensing content, etc.
Nowadays it still only earns a little every month, but that's mostly owing to a rise in expenses (e.g., I pay the contributors more). But profit is secondary for me, my primary motive is to have an excuse to research and write this stuff, and for intelligent people to consume it.
- gkfasdfasdf 8y agoJust want to say thank you. I wish more sites on the internet put out quality content like yours!
- kkaranth 8y agoThis looks neat. I'll be sure to read a few articles from here. Why the curated section though? I think it distracts to have links to articles from NYTime or Wired on the side.
- DamnInteresting 8y agoIt's a long story, but the short version goes something like this: At first we worked our cabooses off to publish new original content several times per month. This proved unsustainable, partially because we were becoming more ambitious with our work, but especially owing to stressors that had arisen in my personal life, and I burned out. I spent a year-long hiatus putting things right, and when we resumed our writing, it was with the understanding that we were switching to a marathon-not-a-sprint publication schedule. The curated column arose to fill in the gaps between our in-house writings. Nowadays many readers specifically visit us for the links, so we feel duty-bound to persist.
- ment4list 8y agoI'd just like to thank you for this. I love all your content and have supported the site in the past. But I especially love the curated section - it's better than recommendations I get from other places like Pocket or Instapaper. Thank you for doing this. Your site is a treasure.
- ta1234567890 8y agoKudos and thank you for resisting advertising and figuring out an alternative business model. It would be awesome if there was a whole alternative Internet like this, where ads (and selling user info) was forbidden.
- erulabs 8y agoWow! Thank you! I've been reading DI for years and years!
- sink 8y agoThank you! I found your site long ago and I’ve enjoyed every article. I often wondered what your plan for it was and would be. This puts a little closure on it. I feel the same way about advertising and wonder what alternate business models could happily maintain such a place while keeping it mostly free and open.
- chadwittman 8y agoI LOVE your site, thank you!
- robert_foss 8y agoI'm a long-term reader and listener, and DI is a fantastic source of interesting stories.
- jiggliemon 8y agoDamn Interesting is my 12 year old daughters favorite podcast. Thank you for keeping it going. It’s great story telling.
- thatoneuser 8y agoHah I just wound up on that site a few days ago randomly. Used to be on it more. Thanks for the contribution to the world!
- unforeseen9991 8y agoThis is pretty cool seeing this here. I've been a Patreon of your site for awhile now, and reading for far longer.
- whytaka 8y agoI've loved DamnInteresting over the years and probably first discovered it soon after you launched it. Thanks so much for all the damn interesting knowledge!!
- adnanazadsg 8y agoWow, I always thought damninteresting.com was wildly profitable. Not sure why - I have been reader since the early days and always found the content to compelling and "sharable" - I'd have imagined that it would be extremely profitable. I suppose without ads there isn't a lot of high-monetization opportunities. Thanks a lot for creating and maintaining the site. If you ever need any help with the design and front-end development of your site, let me know - I'd love to volunteer some time to the site that I love so much.
- jotato 8y agoI started reading DI in 2005. I know because I found it during a lunch break at my first job. The quality there never lets me down. Thanks for it!