Thanks for replying & editing the OP — appreciate it! :D
I wonder if your third point about advertising might be a differentiating factor
Yeah — to my knowledge, we have the biggest team focused on outreach of any (single) EA organisation (3 FTE). I think this is probably a big part of it.
...we’re not seeing a “normal level of growth”. While growth had generally been the norm pre-FTX, we’re now either seeing zero growth (EA forum metrics) or outright contraction (EA Funds donations/donors, EA.org intro page, EA newsletter).
I think that’s fair enough — we’re talking about “telling a story” about a bunch of data points here, across several years, each of which might have a whole load of complex factors driving them. I think my view here is not very resilient to new info/new ways of looking at it, and I agree some of the data seems like it fits a lot better with your high-level story with mine.
That said, I’d point out that:
EA Forum engagement hours are still above early 2022 levels, if I’m reading the graph correctly, which was my claim above
The EA Newsletter shrinking is probably mostly driven by where the signup is advertised, and how much.
It also looks like the newsletter has barely grown since 2018, so I’d guess CEA are not actively trying to get many more signups.
Also, isn’t the main place it’s advertised the EA intro essay? So if traffic to that page has dropped, signups will drop → they’re not independent sources of data on interest in EA dropping.
Put another way, it’d be really remarkable if the newsletter could still grow when its signup page was being shown to fewer people!
Thanks for replying & editing the OP — appreciate it! :D
Yeah — to my knowledge, we have the biggest team focused on outreach of any (single) EA organisation (3 FTE). I think this is probably a big part of it.
I think that’s fair enough — we’re talking about “telling a story” about a bunch of data points here, across several years, each of which might have a whole load of complex factors driving them. I think my view here is not very resilient to new info/new ways of looking at it, and I agree some of the data seems like it fits a lot better with your high-level story with mine.
That said, I’d point out that:
EA Forum engagement hours are still above early 2022 levels, if I’m reading the graph correctly, which was my claim above
The EA Newsletter shrinking is probably mostly driven by where the signup is advertised, and how much.
It also looks like the newsletter has barely grown since 2018, so I’d guess CEA are not actively trying to get many more signups.
Also, isn’t the main place it’s advertised the EA intro essay? So if traffic to that page has dropped, signups will drop → they’re not independent sources of data on interest in EA dropping.
Put another way, it’d be really remarkable if the newsletter could still grow when its signup page was being shown to fewer people!