====== Platform Statistics (2024-2025) ======

Reference numbers for IndieWeb-adjacent platforms and the context for why they matter.

===== Medium =====

  * 100 million monthly visitors
  * $2 million+ paid to writers monthly
  * Membership: $5/month: a portion goes directly to every writer whose work you applaud, highlight, or spend time reading
  * Largest demographic: 25-34 year olds (33%)
  * Average session: 2 minutes 16 seconds: intentionally non-sticky
  * Subscriber count: 400,000 (2019) → 700,000+ (2021)

The payment model: no advertisers, no shareholders taking the cut. You highlight a sentence, the writer gets paid directly.

===== Tumblr =====

  * 135 million monthly active users
  * 620 million blogs
  * 12.8 million posts daily (2,000/second)
  * Gen Z: 50% of active users, 60% of new sign-ups
  * Average session: **20 minutes 46 seconds**, 6.39 pages per visit: not doomscrolling
  * When Brazil banned X: Tumblr traffic surged 350%
  * When TikTok's future was uncertain: Tumblr-tagged posts jumped 395%

People are fleeing corporate social media: not to new platforms, but to old ones.

===== NeoCities =====

  * 55,000 sites (2015) → 1 million (February 2025) → 1.3 million+ (2025)
  * 95% associated with indie web culture
  * 90% opposed to AI-generated content
  * 85% focused on community building and web design
  * Free tier: 1GB storage, 200GB bandwidth

===== The "Where Not What" Framing =====

Screen time is not the problem. The platform is the problem.

^ Activity ^ Character ^
| Scrolling TikTok for 2 hours | Passive consumption loop |
| Reading a 10,000-word essay on Medium | Focus |
| Building a Neocities page | Productive creation |
| 20 minutes on Tumblr following poets | Intentional community |

The digital detox app market was projected at $0.39B (2023) → $19.44B (2032). Apps to help you use your phone less, accessed on your phone, sending notifications to remind you not to use your phone. The problem is not duration: it is intentionality.

Harm reduction: replace the bad with the good. Don't delete Instagram; follow 50 poets on Tumblr and watch your dashboard fill with actual art instead of sponsored content.

===== Entry Points by Effort =====

See [[indieweb:getting_started|Getting Started on the IndieWeb]] for the full skill ladder. Quickest paths:

  * **$5/month**: Medium membership funds the writing commons directly
  * **Free, no code**: Tumblr; post weird things, reblog other people's weird things
  * **Free, some code**: NeoCities; one Saturday afternoon, HTML + CSS documentation, something permanently yours

===== See Also =====
  * [[indieweb:start|IndieWeb Index]]

  * [[indieweb:harm_reduction|Harm Reduction: Practical Steps]]
  * [[indieweb:getting_started|Getting Started on the IndieWeb]]
  * [[indieweb:hosting|Hosting & Domains]]
  * [[indieweb:good_web|The Good Web]]
  * [[start|Return to wiki home]]