alt Hacker NewsI realized recently, of the thousands of blog posts I've read, videos I've watched, books I've read, I only reached out to the creators a handful of times.
And my friends are often surprised by me reaching out to strangers, so I seem to be unusually extroverted in this regard.
Which implies that there could be thousands of people out there whose lives I've affected (for better or worse!), and I'll never know. If only a fraction of a percent of them get back to me. Then that's just how it works.
I've heard that a huge percentage of people on the Internet are lurkers and that those posting and commenting are in the minority. Not sure if that's still true in the age of smartphones. I'll often leave comments on YT vids and such if they were interesting or helpful, but I would say a lot of people I know probably wouldn't do the same. I would probably not do the equivalent at an in-person talk, so that's an interesting contrast to think about.