Every few months I get curious whether anyone reads this thing, and every few months I open a tab to add some kind of visit counter, and every few months I close the tab again without doing it.
The honest reason isn’t some principled stand — it’s that I know myself, and a number on a dashboard would change what I write. I’d notice which posts got more views and, without meaning to, start writing more of those and fewer of the ones nobody clicks. The posts I’m actually proud of a year later are rarely the ones I’d guess would perform well in a dashboard.
There’s also a simpler reason: every analytics script is a request a reader’s browser has to make that has nothing to do with the words on the page, on a site whose entire premise is that speed and privacy aren’t things I trade away for insight I don’t strictly need. I don’t know how many people read this. I’ve decided that’s fine.