… audience capture has the potential to impact me as the author in ways that could change my journey and where my exploration took me.

Audience capture “involves the gradual and unwitting replacement of a person’s identity with one custom-made for the audience.” (ref: The Perils of Audience Capture)

When I think of my liberty I’m considering the ability to act as I please, without constraint and on my own discretion. That last part is the one that I worry about in regard to advertising, or algorithms prompting me with information. It is also the primary concern about audience capture.

The metrics provide a mirage of insight and influence. It “feels like” you are learning more about the audience, but you may be modifying yourself to fit the pattern of what you see in the data. Your audience engages a lot with this one topic? It seems far too likely that more of that will start appearing in front of you. In reality all of this data bends and shapes the creator to fit into the mold of their audience.

In general, as a creator, I think we need to be very cautious about what data we collect, and how we plan to use that. Don’t collect data unless you know how you are going to put it into action.