I digress. The key fact is that the “notifies you when there’s an update” feed is what I’d originally set up. The “show the whole post” apparently happened once the technology changed and aggregators chose to consider that the default. I simply went back into the program and re-set the option to what I’d intended in the first place.

Seriously, dude, storming out of here in high dudgeon is so last week.

From what I understand, the reason you’re upset about Google in particular is because they have the potential to profit from your work without paying for it. That’s valid; web news sources are driving journalistic publications out of business by copying their content and offering it for free or cheap.

Then that argument was set aside as for why content creators should care, while the reason we should care is because “Google is probably using data mining, making You The Reader an unpaid employee.” Scary-scary privacy invasion! Data mining is how they support search, GMail, and just about everything else they do. The end result? Ads you’re more likely to be interested in.

Question: would you rather have your time wasted by an ad for something you’re completely uninterested in, or one that informed you about products you could use in your daily activities? Caring about privacy is fine, but if you don’t share information that affects your relationships with people (read: you have nothing to hide), the end result is win-win.

Another way data mining is used is to recommend feeds. As someone else noted above, this blog was recommended to me by Google. As also noted above, the comments are a big part of the content and an incentive to click through, so the people leaving in a huff are taking pageviews with them. You may not be able to see it with the forced clickthroughs of the new system, but it’s definitely an effect.

Ultimately, the point I’m trying to make is that I believe a completely content-free RSS defeats a main part of the purpose of the technology, Google still isn’t evil, and I’m sticking around for now, but a future loss of interest may be hastened by the extra investment for the same content.

I also clicked through for the LOL’s because normally only the first 1 or 2 would show and I’d come to read the rest.

But for a single comic that I understood I could just move on.

But I’ll be removing it from my reader and this will be my last page view you will get.

I visit CIDU about 2-4 tiimes/week, and I start reading from the top. When I see a comic that interests me, I click on it to open in a new tab. I do that all the way down until I get to something I’ve seen before. Then I read the tabs. This site is *recreational* and I can’t comprehend shoehorning it into my daily workflow. This is the kind of site you check out on your coffee break or, like me, late at night after the kids are asleep. CIDU Bill has worked very hard over the years to provide something worth enjoying. If you can’t take the time to savor it, perhaps the problem isn’t with the site.

Having said all that, do I get to complain a bit? I miss Crimeweek and Billo the Clown!