Comment by pixodaros

In the first blogging boom (funded by Google to get people posting more so they had more results to serve and get them reading more to be advertised to) most blogs were hosted by LiveJournal, blogspot, Automattic, etc. In the second blogging boom (funded by Substack's investors) most are hosted by Substack, Autmattic, etc. Self-hosted blogs (and newsletter blogs) were always few in number, although the handful of big blogs tended to go independent or get a corporate or university sponsor.