On October 16, 2024 I announced some changes in my artdiamondblog.com web log. For instance, I was going to focus more entries on my next book project: Less Costs, More Cures: Unbinding Medical Entrepreneurs, and I was to include some brief entries on my memories of important economists such as George Stigler and Gary Becker. I implemented both changes, though more of the former than the latter.
One other change that I have made, especially in the last few months, is to precede almost all entries with (sometimes detailed) introductory commentary.
I believe that these changes have improved the average quality of my entries, but may have narrowed the audience who will find them of interest. My blog entries in the last several months may be of increased interest to those who are willing to follow me into the weeds of healthcare policy, but may be of decreased interest to those who care more about the broader set of issues that I dealt with in my Openness to Creative Destruction book.
Personally, I have mixed feelings about the changes to my blog. On the one hand I feel some pride and satisfaction on the higher quality of entries, and have some hope that many of the entries will end up being useful early notes toward my bigger project. On the other hand, the changes have not reduced the overall time I invest in the blog, as I had hoped they would.
The bottom line is that I have been spending too much time on the blog, and too little time on my writing and research projects. Or as an economist might say, the opportunity cost of marginal time spent on the blog is too high. So I have decided to implement another change. Starting on July 15, 2025, I will commit to running a new entry on Monday of each week, but will not post on the other days of the week unless something big comes up.
I want to see how this change works–it may be permanent, or after the end of the summer, I may switch back to daily posts.
I make this change with some twinge of sadness and regret, since I take some pride in having run a daily post on almost all days from July 15, 2005 through July 15, 2025.
On July 15 of every year Aaron Brown sends me happy blog birthday greetings. (I continue to be grateful to Aaron for his thoughtful comments on blog entries, and for letting me know when an entry is missing or when something in an entry is amiss.)
This year on July 15 my blog will be 20 years old.
Perseverance is sometimes praiseworthy; pivoting is sometimes praiseworthy too. I hope I am right to pivot.