My kid told me years ago to move to itch.io, and I did not. Gumroad was too convenient, I was already using it, couldn’t maintain yet another place to host OpenDyslexic. He’s had a few opportunities to let me know, “I told you so” the past few weeks.

I liked Gumroad. I’ve used it for almost 12 years. I met the CEO in Boston. Gumroad had a catered dinner I was asked to present at, and had a great time meeting the employees, gain understanding of how Gumroad was operating, and meeting others using Gumroad.

Unfortunately, a few weeks ago, while trying to figure out why people were having a hard time downloading OpenDyslexic, I discovered that Gumroad hosts and promotes Nazi content. Actively Nazi content. I understand that politics being what they are, people have started to assume the term Nazi may be an exaggerated insult against conservatives. I am not using it that way here – although, have you seen conservatives lately?

I let the support rep know, and he kindly responded that Gumroad had evaluated this specific account and determined that it did not go against their policies, specifically their policies that anything can stay on Gumroad as long as it’s not financially detrimental to them. He also shared a document for prospective employees highlighting this, with the document stating that, “Creators we disagree with may use Gumroad.” The document was titled, “What’s not so good at Gumroad?”

Technically, the account violates Gumroad policies against “Incite violence against a specific person, place, or group”, and the account in question very obviously does this. I tried using Gumroad’s reporting (a Google form) to report them ‘officially,’ but the form does not provide space for showing evidence the violation, and only allows one report to be made, forever. I also tried emailing the CEO. I received no response.

As much as possible, I don’t want to use services providing disseminating hatred or providing safe places for … literal Nazis and potentially promoting their content. I asked around for recommendations for a new provider and consistently received Itch.io as a response. I was sent links to the owner’s Twitter account, and Itch.io’s policies, and it seemed it would be a good place to move to. I showed it to my oldest, and he said… “I told you so.” Damn it.

So began my move to Itch.io: Creating pages, moving files, and importing users from Gumroad (mostly to tell them I moved). It took an hour to receive 12 years worth of data from Gumroad, but took less than half a minute to upload to Itch.io. Itch.io also recently enabled custom CSS for my account for a small project, Visual DOS, that needed it to display properly. This was a feature Gumroad had taken away a long while ago, and I was glad to have it for the OpenDyslexic page (it’s weird having the OpenDyslexic page in some plain sans-serif).

Before going live I had to actually update the OpenDyslexic website that I’ve been intending to update for the past few years. Listing applications using OpenDyslexic has felt less important recently because many developers have moved to allowing custom fonts. Because of this, instead of the original plan of a Drupal 10 site, I went with a static site that is hopefully more concise, but easier to host and update.

While doing this I learned that the recent issues with Gumroad downloads were because Gumroad had been implying a purchase was necessary, and requiring a valid email account to access even free downloads. This is now resolved since Itch.io requires none of this. An account is not required to download OpenDyslexic, and when downloading a free item, it is obvious that payment is optional. My child, in response to my discovery of this simply stated, “I told you so.”

I am hopeful OpenDyslexic is now easier to obtain and use. I am also hopeful that expectations of use are clearer too. While I appreciate donations (I have to buy food and pay rent like everyone else), I never wanted people to feel it was required –especially people who also need to pay rent and buy food, and are trying to figure out how to make ends meet. If you happen to be well off, I’d welcome it though. ;)

I was concerned disabling purchases on Gumroad would make OpenDyslexic more difficult to download, but this has not been the case. One and a half weeks after moving to Itch.io, downloads of OpenDyslexic are as high as they’ve ever been. I think things are going to be okay.

A lot has changed in the past years. The idea you could “leave your politics at the door” is less true now than it’s ever been (let’s be honest tho, it’s never been). People I once respected have explicitly called for various genocides at Thanksgiving dinner, and have pulled me aside to explain that while want a society that will kill me, they really do care about me (how does that work?). Leaving politics at the door it seems is more about letting terrible people be comfortable sharing their hatred. It’s something I can’t excused in person, and I won’t pretend it’s okay on the Internet.

In such a hostile environment, it’s nice to have at least one small place that is not hostile. I thank you all for being so welcoming, and am grateful for the space here.

I’m also grateful for everyone that’s been helped by OpenDyslexic. Even if I’m not always able to reply, your messages of encouragement have always been appreciated.