If you are a subscriber to our magazine (Annals of Improbable Research), you may be chuckling or grimacing (or both) at the email messages of the past few days.
Do not be dismayed, please! Those emails are a side effect of something good, of a weird problem being solved.
The PROBLEM: The company we have long used to process subscriptions became very unreliable. That company is called Gumroad. Gumroad’s owner got rid of all the humans at Gumroad, replacing them with an AI program. Gumroad’s subscription-handling then became erratic, ever more so. It became impossible to reach any human at Gumroad by email or by phone.
The SOLUTION: On February 8, 2026, we switched to using a more reliable subscription processing service — one that has human beings, rather than AI, doing its programming and customer service.
The new processor is called Payhip. The subscription page for our magazine is here.
What to Do, Dear Subscriber
PLEASE NOTE, DEAR SUBSCRIBER that the email you receive from us (Improbable Research) includes a coupon code. Please USE THAT COUPON CODE, so you will not be charged anew for the subscription.
If you run into problems, please email us at <disgruntled ATTTTTTTT improbable DOTTTTTT com>
Sorry to put you through the hassle of this. A big THANK YOU for sticking with us as we solve this gummed-up dadgum Gumroad problem!
If You Receive a Weird Message from Gumroad…
You may receive weird, AI-generated email messages from Gumroad. All we can suggest about those Gumroad messages is: keep them as souvenirs to give some day to your grandchildren.
Here is one such email message from Gumroad (we have redacted the name of the subscriber who received it and informed us about it):
Further Info About Gumroad, for Scholars of Screw-Ups
For your amusement or dismay, here’s some further info about Gumroad. Though you might decide that it could be classified as “screwball comedy”, it did happen, and is happening. The links will lead you to detailed reporting about the weirdnesses.
In early 2025, Gumroad’s owner, while Gumroad was being entirely run by his AI program, spent most of his time as a volunteer techie for Elon Musk‘s DOGE gang, to try to make the US government become as efficient as Gumroad had become. After observing government systems firsthand, he concluded that the US government had been and already was surprisingly efficient. He told that to Elon Musk. Elon Musk fired him. In a further twist, a few months later he (Gumroad’s owner) went to work full time for the US government’s tax collection service, the Internal Revenue Service (the IRS).
The AI program now is apparently still the sole entity operating everything Gumroad.
You might want to do some googling of your own to see more details of the Gumroad owner’s strange odyssey. Or you might not.
PS. You might further enjoy reading a fanboy’s (or an AI’s?) fervent appreciation of Gumroad.