Almost everything you read on the internet is built to hold on to you. It moves, it interrupts, it counts, it never quite ends, and it is very slightly exhausting in a way that is hard to name. This is a list of the things this publication will not do to you, and it is written down so you can hold us to it.
Version 221 August 2026Every edit we have made
| What we promise | How you can check it yourself |
|---|---|
| Nothing moves after the page has loaded. | Load any piece and watch the first two seconds. The words do not jump. |
| Nothing interrupts you mid-sentence. | Read to the end of anything. Nothing appears over the top of it. |
| Nothing counts down, and nothing keeps score. | There is no number on this site that goes down while you look at it. |
| Everything here can be finished. | Read the Edition to the end. It stops, and it tells you that it has. |
| Nothing plays sound or video by itself. | Nothing on this site autoplays. Ever. |
| The time estimate is yours, and it stays on your device. | Open the reading settings on any piece. If we have measured you, the number is there, with a button to forget it. |
| Your text size is remembered and never reset. | Set it once, close the tab, come back. |
| The page works with the sound off, the colour gone, and the images blocked. | Turn off images. Nothing you need disappears. |
| We tell you when we have changed something. | The foot of every piece links to its full history. |
Not measured yet. Finish a piece and the time estimates start using your own pace instead of the standard 220 words a minute. It is worked out on this device and never sent anywhere.
Everything here is remembered on every piece you read. What we promise a reader.
A page that shifts under you costs you your place and a small amount of trust every time. Every image and figure here reserves its space before it arrives.
Load any piece and watch the first two seconds. The words do not jump.
The pop-up that covers a paragraph to ask for your email is the clearest possible statement that the publication wants something from you more than it wants you to read. There is not one here, and there will not be.
Read to the end of anything. Nothing appears over the top of it.
No streaks, no "2 free articles left", no progress bar racing you to the bottom, no badge for finishing. A publication that gamifies reading has stopped being a publication.
There is no number on this site that goes down while you look at it.
This promise was narrower yesterday — it said no infinite scroll of any kind — and we have changed it deliberately, and would rather say so than quietly edit it. The Edition now carries you from one piece to the next while you read, instead of sending you back to choose again. What we will not build is a surface with no bottom. The harm in an endless feed was never that reading continues; it is that it cannot be finished, and a thing that cannot be finished can be used to keep you. The Edition walks the whole archive and then genuinely stops, at the oldest piece we have published, and says so on the screen.
Read the Edition to the end. It stops, and it tells you that it has.
You did not ask for it, and you might not be alone in the room.
Nothing on this site autoplays. Ever.
"6 min read" everywhere else is a word count divided by 200 words a minute — a speed invented for somebody who is not you, which quietly tells a slower reader they are behind. We measure your actual pace from the pieces you finish here, and use that instead. It is worked out in your browser, stored in your browser, and never sent to us. You can erase it in the reading settings.
Open the reading settings on any piece. If we have measured you, the number is there, with a button to forget it.
Choosing a comfortable size should be a thing you do once. Four sizes and a wider line spacing, and they follow you to every piece here.
Set it once, close the tab, come back.
Colour on this site marks only one thing — whether you can still act on something — and every one of those marks is also carried by a length or a word. Nothing you need is inside an image.
Turn off images. Nothing you need disappears.
We keep editing what we publish, because we keep learning. Every edit is on the record with the date, the time, and why it was an improvement.
The foot of every piece links to its full history.
Adapting to a reader usually means a system that watches what you do and arranges things to keep you doing it. That is not what happens here, and we would rather say so plainly than let the word do quiet work.
One number adapts: how long a piece will take you. Nothing else changes based on what you read, how fast you read it, or how often you come back. The order of the pieces is the same for everyone, and nothing is recommended to you.
Your pace and your reading settings never leave your browser — there is no endpoint in this site that could receive them. That is a narrower promise than “we collect nothing”, and we are making the narrow one on purpose, because if you allow analytics we do record which pieces get read and how far down. What we will not do is turn any of it back on you. The full account is below and in the privacy policy.
Everything else you can set, and once you have set it we leave it alone. That is the whole idea: this should be a place you can arrive at tired and leave no more tired than you came.
We are not going to end a page of promises without the honest part. This site carries advertising, and it asks once — never over the top of a sentence — whether you will allow analytics so we can see which pieces are read. If you say no, nothing is collected and nothing about the site changes. The full account is in the privacy policy.
The advertising is furniture, not content: it is marked as chrome in the code, which means it disappears when you print, and it is never inserted into the middle of a paragraph.
One correction, and then a correction to the correction, both made within an hour of this page going live. The front page came back covered by a full-screen panel over a dimmed page. We said it was the ad network. It was not — it was us. The page was loading Google’s Reader Revenue Manager, a subscription prompt for a subscription this publication does not sell, and it put a dialog over the reporting on the front page and on every article. It has been removed entirely.
We are leaving both mistakes written down rather than quietly fixing them, because the first one is the more instructive: it is very easy to blame the thing outside your control for a promise you broke yourself.
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