Comment by ravenstine
Comment by ravenstine 9 days ago
I can relate.
However, something to remember is that, even when you're right, you'll still be wrong to many people on the internet.
My biggest barrier to getting back into blogging is the low return on investment. Absolutely nobody I know outside of developers on HN actually reads blogs today. Everyone seems to rely on YouTube/TikTok, ChatGPT, mainstream news articles, and maybe whatever blogspam The Google decides to surface. The days of "if you build it they will come" are long since dead, and even if I were to find regular readers, is it really worth my time to entertain or inform them when I could be out fishing on my boat?
I agree with you, but just for kicks I'd like to go through your examples.
First, blogging is alive and well in the outdoor sports space. "Trip reports" serve as incredibly helpful tools for research. In climbing, [Steph Abegg](https://www.stephabegg.com/tripreports/chronology) has one of the most useful sites cataloging, detailing, and photo logging all of her ascents. The late Marc-Andre Leclerc was a beautiful human, and while there are films and memories about him, it's his [blog](https://marcleclerc.blogspot.com/) that allows the world to get a truer sense for who he was.
I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer blogs over YouTube for their ability to parse the info more easily. TikTok takes most of the control in how it presents any info you might find and tops it off with immeasurable distraction.
ChatGPT can be great for quickly gathering relevant knowledge, but it still needs cross-referencing, and lacks the creative and novel elements that comes from a valuable human blog post.
Mainstream news articles tend to lack personality and voice.
"If you build it they will come" seems to still hold true for the posts and trip reports I've written. I've been pleasantly surprised by the email I've receive in my inbox asking esoteric follow-up questions, wondering how they even found my posts in the first place.
Overall traffic is admittedly mostly non-existent, and that's fine as I'd be glad to help or inform the few that do come across my posts. Though more to your point, I do wonder how many potential (younger?) readers will never come across a blog post because it's not ingrained as a place to look for info, as opposed to YouTube/TikTok etc.