Privacy

So What? is a site of lessons and podcasts about new research. You can read and listen without an account, and some lessons and podcasts are for subscribers, at $7 a month. This page covers what the site keeps when you sign in or subscribe, and who else handles it.

Signing in with Google

When you sign in, Google tells the site your Google account ID, email address, name and profile picture link. The site asks Google for nothing else, and it has no access to your Google account after sign-in. Your email identifies your account. Your name appears beside the comments you post.

Subscribing

Stripe runs subscriptions. You enter your card on Stripe's own checkout page, and you change your card or cancel on Stripe's billing page, opened from your account page. Your card details go to Stripe and never reach this site.

The site tells Stripe your email and account number, so the payment reaches the right account. Stripe tells the site your Stripe customer and subscription IDs, whether your subscription is paid up, and when its current period ends. The site keeps those with your account. Stripe keeps its own record of your payments, under its own privacy policy.

What the site keeps for your account

• The papers you mark reading, read or favorite, and your folders.
• The foundation pages you mark read or known.
• The pages you visit, with how far you scrolled and the pages that led there, so you can pick up where you left off.
• Where you stopped in each episode.
• The comments you post on episodes. These are public: anyone who can hear the episode sees them, with your name.
• Your account's access level and, if you subscribe, your subscription's IDs, status and renewal date.

Your account page counts each of these. The site's owner can see the list of accounts, with each one's email, name, access level, subscription status and sign-up date. Everything is kept until you delete it or delete your account.

Cookies and browser storage

The site sets one cookie, holding your sign-in, when you sign in. It lasts 90 days or until you sign out. A few preferences stay in your browser's own storage and never reach the site: playback speed, the voices and 3D sound you chose, where you stopped in an episode while signed out, and a list filter. The site uses no advertising or analytics cookies and does no tracking. Stripe's checkout and billing pages are Stripe's own and set Stripe's cookies.

Who else handles data

• Vercel hosts the site. Its servers see each request, including your IP address.
• Neon stores the site's database.
• Amazon Web Services delivers the podcast audio, and sees each request for an audio file.
• Google provides sign-in and the site's fonts. Loading a page fetches the fonts from Google, which sees your IP address.
• Stripe takes subscribers' payments and keeps their card details.

The site doesn't sell your data or share it with anyone beyond these services.

Deleting your data

You can delete any comment you posted from its episode page. To delete your account and everything kept for it, use Delete account on your account page. Any subscription is cancelled at once, and you are signed out. You can also write to aahl.byte+sowhat@gmail.com.

Changes

If this page changes, the date below changes with it.

Effective 17 October 2026.