transparency

This is a page where I transparently share a bunch of information about how I work on my projects, the values that guide them, and how things are going financially with them.

Last updated: February 3, 2026

Jump to: metrics | finances | principles

metrics 📈

This part is under construction. I need to figure out what metrics matter to share transparently, and clever ways of gathering and showing them here.

traffic

I use GoatCounter for simple, privacy-friendly analytics for this site and my other sites. All my site analytics are fully transparent and available here.

followers & listeners

Apparently it’s quite expensive (and in many cases impossible) to simply pull my listener metrics via API, so I’m just going to post my rough stats here:

• Spotify: 212 followers, 156 monthly listeners
• Bandcamp: 312 followers, 5 paid subscribers, 6665 lifetime plays

finances 💰

I aim to my hobbies and creative endeavors to be self-funding. That is, my goal is for every dollar spent on the tools & services here to be paid for by the stuff I make with the tools & services.

income

Outside of my Buffer salary, I make money mostly by releasing & selling music but also in a few other (small) ways. I’d like to gradually build up a small amount of freelance work, both via music services and product strategy consulting.

Here are those sources of income and how much I made in 2025:

expenses

Here is a table of everything I’ve spent money on since establishing this goal in mid-2023 (excluding taxes):

guiding principles 🧠

My primary goals as a creative person are creative freedom and sustainability above all else. I am not motivated by rapid growth, but rather a small invested audience of patrons, fans & collaborators.

I try to stick to the following principles with all my creative work in service of the above:

1. Do no harm, do not enable harm
2. Minimize service lock-in
3. Minimize money given to services/platforms misaligned with my values
4. Keep costs & maintenance time as low as possible
5. Strength in numbers: support & collaborate with similarly-minded artists & service providers
6. Hold myself accountable by building & sharing in public

When I can, assuming my projects are self-sustaining, I try to support causes that I care about. Here are some examples:

• THREADS ON MY ART volumes 1 & 2, which raised money to support the Trevor Project, World Central Kitchen and the ACLU
• hive mind(s) and REMIXED CASTLE, each of which raised money for a struggling trans creator in the Music Threads community

stance on music streaming

I generally consider the streaming business model hostile to the ability for the average music artist to sustain a living, given the marketplace dynamics it enables. I aim to minimize the presence of my music on streaming to only:

• single releases, aimed to promote Kid Lightbulbs and tease my other releases as offered on my website, Bandcamp and other more artist-friendly platforms
• a singular album, ideally never my most recent one, to tease the fact that I make albums without commoditizing them entirely

As of July 2025, two of my albums (RUINED CASTLE and REMIXED CASTLE) are available on streaming services, and roughly 3-4 singles each promoting my other albums. I will not release full albums on streaming platforms moving forward.

I take significant issue with Spotify’s dominance over the habits of casual listeners, exploitation of artists, and use of its profits. I neither pay for any of Spotify’s services nor promote it as a destination for my music. However, at this time I have not withdrawn my catalog from it, mainly to not restrict access for potential listeners (see principle 4 above). However, if over time Spotify’s market share decreases, I will likely remove my music from Spotify’s platform fully.

stance on generative AI

Like many artists today, I grapple with what to do about “generative AI”. This is where I’ve landed:

• There is absolutely no use of generative AI in any of my creative output. This includes: all music I write & release, any writing you read on this site, and any content you see on my social & marketing channels.
• Given the above statement, I do not tend to collaborate with artists who rely on generative AI to “create” music or visual art.
• I use Anthropic’s Claude exclusively in a software development & product management context, which is covered by my employer’s AI tools stipend benefit. I use Claude in the following ways:
  • To rapidly prototype and/or build refinements & features to improve the Buffer product, with the goal of saving time, minimizing distraction for my teammates and building clarity
  • I occasionally use it as a research and sparring partner – that is, I use it to capture & summarize information about the social products landscape and bounce ideas related to product strategy.
• I do sometimes use predictive & machine learning-based tools in the production of music. I specifically use the following tools, all available in the stock Logic Pro offering:
  • Session Drummer (to stage drum patterns, which I usually then manipulate by hand in MIDI format)
  • Flex Pitch (to correct odd inflections in my voice)