I wonder if a lot of the people commenting didn't bother to read the post. From what I can tell, he's just using this question as an illustration of a point about product/market fit and how to find it. I really don't think he's pondering shutting down his blog or looking for sympathy or anything. He actually has something useful to say.
I thought the same when I saw the tweet, but the flip side of it is that I really do like just about every one of Bradford's posts. If more HN traffic means he'll keep writing quality posts then so be it. I upvote on the quality of the article, not on his suggestion.
Scroll down. The top section asking you to do the survey is probably somewhat incidental for first time readers - the "how to interpret" content below the survey is useful though.
Wouldn't disappoint me if you shut it down, since I've never heard of it. You asked! I guess more speech leads to better speech, and at a cursory glance your blog looks sincere.
It really wouldn't disappoint me if you also didn't also waste our time trying to drive traffic through sympathy.
Sympvertising! I know people act pretty pathetic and that gets lots of attention on here, but I think it's mainly because they are actually in need of some pathos and feedback.
I am also not sure why you would want people to comment on their feelings about your blog if they are not regular visitors. I would think that putting this poll on your website would be enough.
Getting a lot of outside influence through Hacker News might skew your data and you won't actually get an accurate representation of the people that frequent your blog.
Did you even read the link? I don't think he's asking because he's trying to decide whether to shut down the blog; he's using it to a illustrate a point about how startups can find product/market fit.