Hello again :)
Mikkel Malmberg: 10er
Dear reader,
Until 1 PM on January 6th, I had a calm start to 2026.
We were already in bed when the fireworks went off at midnight on New Year’s. I woke up Uno, wrapped him in a duvet, and went to the balcony to watch the sky. The first thing we noticed was a giant flying drone LED light show. It was organized by the municipality of Athens, as a less noisy and polluting way, to mark the shift of the calendar year, as defined some 500 years ago.
To me, it felt like the end of the old world. Rather than the drones, I preferred those long, silent, and red fireworks used by ships to signal an emergency. There were a handful of them. I believe they are called ‘Red parachute rockets’. They are critical for sailors, and therefore needs to be replaced annually. In other words, there is some sense to the spectacle, and, according to my grandfather, this is the origin for the fireworks on New Year’s—at least in this hemisphere.
**
In our planning call for the second issue of the Internet Phone Book, Elliott asked me if I had a word for the year. His was <time>, written as an HTML element. I like his word. It makes me think of the prolonged way I walk back from Uno’s school so I can walk up the slopes of the Filopappou Hill and catch the morning sun. It also makes me think of closing the laptop to have lunch with Ana on a random Thursday.
I tell Elliott that I don’t have a word for 2026. I used to do this annually as a wrap-up of my pattern’s post: intention, repetition, and rhythm are some of the past words. If you’d ask me to pick one for 2026, it would likely be ‘personal’, like that year review I don’t want to publish because it gets intimate in a way I no longer feel appropriate to broadcast, and because life is messy and unresolved in the way fears and desires ignore the shifting calendars.
**
So what happened on January 6th?
I blended my left index finger while making a soaked cashew garlic dip to sprinkle on the kale-chips I was preparing for our lunch guests. I don’t understand why my right hand would push the button of the stick blender while the left hand’s finger was tinkering with the paste stuck in the blades, but I immediately knew I had done something stupid, and if not, the red blood made it evident. Our friends still came over, and we had a lovely lunch. Uno found the coin in his cake piece, which is a Greek thing for good luck. The cake is called Vasilopita.
**
Wherever I look, I see the old world’s fireworks: the blended content to keep us entertained and free us from labour, and the brutal use of power. Fortunately, I also see the calm night sky. It’s the new world. The world where the long red tail of the parachute rocket is designed to connect humans in need with help, unlike the spectacle by the drones, where I’m unable to locate the pilots.
The finger? It is okay. I have learned to write with nine fingers while the tenth is healing. I’m sure it will be fine with <time>. See you next week.
With care,
Kristoffer
❀࿐
Mikkel Malmberg: 10er
Mikkel Malmberg makes tools, jokes, and stories from his home in the fifth largest Danish city.
What is 10er?
10er (tenner) is a crowdfunding/monetization platform for creators. Supporters sign up to support creators with X amount per Y thing they release. Like, $1 per podcast episode. If you’re thinking “Like [other service]?”. Yes, sort of like them. But smaller and more focused, and made by me.
Why did you build it?
11 years ago I co-hosted a comedy podcast. A few listeners had asked if they could support us and we had added a PayPal button to the website. Amazingly, surprisingly people clicked it. It was great but also not easy to plan around. We desperately needed new (read: some) gear and money was dripping in but it always arrived in surprise little bumps. We never knew when or how much or if ever again. If instead it was more like a “donation subscription”, we could actually plan around it like regular income.
Crowdfunding had a moment back then. Kickstarter was biiig and still very grass roots. I had been following Jack Conte’s (Patreon CEO) music and videos for a while and was very into the idea of Patreon which was brand new at the time. I almost registered, a few times actually, but it felt like adding another job on top of what we were already doing. Patreon heavily focused on giving supporters more than the content they were supporting. I wanted something simpler.
Being a programmer, an optimistically naive one, and empowered by my new Stripe account, I thought: “I can just build it myself.” So I did, over a week’s time. We announced and fans started signing up. A friend asked if he could have the same for his project and so 10er became a platform.
What’s it like running the project a decade later?
I’ve been running 10er for 11 years now and for most of that time as a side project. The core model and premise hasn’t changed much and the day-to-day doesn’t require much maintenance. A few years back I hired someone part-time to help with customer service and social media so that I could forget 10er for days or a few weeks without the whole thing falling apart. In 2025 I brought on my wife for that position and she’s been great.
I share a bunch of numbers publicly from 10er, including revenue, and if you look at that graph, it just goes steadily upwards and to the right. What’s not shown are all the mistakes and small wins, new features and new competitors. It’s been a wonderful little project to run. Creators are happy to be paid for their hard work, supporters are happy that they have an easy, reliable way to give back.
Kristoffer says: Visit 10er.com or explore Mikkel’s other work and writing on his personal website. And a final note from me: I’d love to feature more of these internet mom-and-pop shops, so write to me if you know any or have your own. I believe these small, personal companies are a very tangible way to make the internet better.
𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼
Field notes
1.
The Computational Poet. I regularly feature Alicia Guo’s work, so it’s a pleasure to include a longer interview with her about her practice and research into language, poetry, and AI. My only objection is that I wish Alicia had been asked to elaborate on her comment about humans who want to control the output of generative work. But maybe that’s for another interview?
2.
The Resonant Computing Manifesto. This was shared widely, and I found myself nodding in agreement until I reached hyper-personalisation. Whenever I read ‘hyper-personalized,’ I can’t stop thinking about ‘hyper-individualized,’ which is a quality I believe goes against most of the experiences I have had of resonance. Few good things come from staring at ourselves in the mirror too often or for too long.
3.
Open your laptop! The creatives designing a more inspiring internet. An article in It’s Nice That featuring yours truly, and many of the Naive Weekly regulars like Daniel Murray and Spencer Chang.
4.
Call for Participation. SFPC Spring 2026 (Due, Feb 9), Parameter (Due, Feb 10), t*issues publishing (Due, Feb 12), Everyoneisagirl (Due, Feb 14), Needlebound (Due, Feb 15), re•mediate (Due, N/A), NMWP Annual Unconference (Due, Feb 28), and Solar Futures (Due, Mar 15),
5.
Poetic Web Calendar. The Origin of the Word (London, Feb 2), The Origin of the Word (Feb 7, Amsterdam), Pop Up Internet Cafe (Feb 14, SF), Teaching Creative Technology (Feb 17, NYC), Internet Infrastructure Walking Tour (Mar 8, London), The Web You Want (Apr 17, Amsterdam), and Open Hardware Summit (May 23-24, Berlin).
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Wayside flowers
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