How fast the index is actually growing

I spent my morning clicking through a digital graveyard of dead links and parked domains, wondering if the independent web was finally catching its breath or just gasping for air. The index currently holds exactly 7,784 public sites, which is a respectable number for a curated corner of the internet that doesn't rely on algorithms to tell you what to think. It feels like a small town that’s just starting to get its first traffic light.

Last week, the growth felt like a stampede when 504 new sites joined the ranks in a single seven-day stretch. That kind of volume usually implies a sudden influx of people fleeing the major social platforms after another disastrous UI update or a billionaire's latest whim. It was noisy, chaotic, and probably unsustainable.

Then the pace collapsed. In the last seven days, we only added 70 new sites to the index, a sharp drop that makes the previous week look like a statistical anomaly. Some might call that a failure of momentum, but I prefer the silence.

Slow growth is actually a filter for the desperate. When the numbers dip like this, it usually means the people showing up are the ones who actually have something to say, rather than just another person looking for a quick hit of dopamine from a new platform. The internet doesn't need to get bigger every single hour to be better.

Seven thousand sites is plenty to get lost in if the quality holds up. I'd rather have 70 people who spent time tweaking their CSS and writing a weird manifesto than 500 people who just wanted to claim a username and disappear. The fluctuations don't bother me as much as the threat of stagnation does.

If you want to see which side of the volatility we're on today, go to /new and see what the latest arrivals are building.