Excellent point. The title of the article which he craftily links to is "The Odd World of Digital Groupies". It's 2.5 years old and has the bolded subtitle " Obsessed fans spend hours online trying to talk to their rock gods—and sometimes, the efforts turn toxic. Doree Shafrir goes inside the bizarre world of extreme internet fandom."

When you live your life off the advertising dollars directed at your audience, it seems like an odd way of commentary.

Right. I hope this isn't Gruber's intent, given that he monetizes his brand (i.e. him) by selling shirts and appearing at conferences. You can't really dictate the terms for interaction when you when you're such a public figure.

If he is saying what GP is suggesting, well, that's the problem with building a cult of personality around yourself: people might buy in a bit too fervently.

Gruber used to have a lot of interesting stuff to say.

In the same way that Jay Leno used to be one of the funniest comics in the 80s and now resorts to Jaywalking to keep his audience, I find DF to be a little boring, consisting of mainly claim chowder, Android schadenfreude, and the occasional long winded rant essay that goes nowhere.