An update about The Understanders

It’s been pretty quiet here lately. There’s a good reason for that: I’m joining Anthropic this week as a user researcher.

I am, to put it mildly, stoked. It should be a very fun, fascinating, and energizing gig.

But it also raises questions for how I could or should keep The Understanders going. I may keep writing here and I may not, but I’ve made two decisions regardless:

1. All paid subscriptions are going to have their purchases refunded.

2. I’m going to “unlock” the archives and any new stuff I may write is going to be free from now on.

I can’t thank you all enough for signing up to read what I’ve written so far— especially those of you who were paid subscribers. Truth is, I knew that I may make this call at some point if the project didn’t pick up steam, if I lost my motivation for it, or if some other unforeseen circumstance came up— like this new job.

I also know many of you paid subscribers will probably scoff at the idea of getting a refund in the first place, but it only seems right given that the tacit agreement of purchasing a yearlong subscription is getting a year’s worth of content. If I do keep writing here, it will likely be much more sporadic than the weekly cadence I originally aimed for.

Thank you again for humoring me and this project for the last few months, and I hope you stay tuned! 🤎