Sometime in the last decade I realized that most people weren't reading my stuff. 

I don't mean this in the obvious way. There are 6 billion people on the planet and perhaps 0.00001 percent have even heard of Scripting News. That's not what I mean (though it's true). 

What I mean is that, even of the people who "read" what I write, either on the blog or in RSS, the vast majority just skim, if they do that.  

An author can tell.  

So when people say that clicking on a little plus sign next to the text to get more is too much work, I think -- how ridiculous -- this person probably isn't even reading my stuff.  

I think what they're really saying is that if the text is hidden, they can't skim it. Aha! Now, for me, the guy who just spent an hour writing the post you're not even willing to spend a few seconds with, that's a feature not a bug. "> 

I don't really want the skimmers. What I want is to get my ideas "out there" so other people can do things with them. If the words only act as magnets for your canned pitch, then nothing happened, and it's not worth the effort. 

So a speed bump that rewards people who do read is a good thing, not a bad one.  

PS: Check out the previous post for an idea of the art that might be possible with sub-text. 

PPS: Sub-text actually makes it easier for skimmers, if they really want to understand what the author is saying. The background stuff is tucked away it just presents the top-level ideas.