I think you and I stand for a stubborn tendency that was visible in early blogging and never went away (and thus is here still). I accept the argument that some form of modest monetization is important simply to make the point that writing is labor, labor should be compensated, etc.; my friends who were in the writing biz used to despair so much about early blogging because we were just giving away what they rightfully charged for without any sense of the profit-seeking circling around us looking to buy it all up. But I think there is still a line between "I do this largely for myself" and "I do this for a gig economy living" and in that line there is still something at stake about the public sphere and about the creative possibilities of blogging. The moment that this is just a gig and nothing more is the moment where you're having to chase the influencers, chase the "more attention", having to work every day to get some eyes on a link, having to do what the algorithms tell you to do, having to hire an SEO firm to boost you. I'm stubborn about this because I have the luxury of another living--I don't judge. But I do think that other gig world is captive to a structure that isn't really trying to raise up a better and richer ecosystem of conversation and thought. That includes Substack, which is very clearly sold on the single recipe that they think earns them money, which is newsletters that are singularly obsessed by one dominant theme--because they think (with some justice) that this is the only way into a heavily inhabited ecosystem for a new entrant. The people who got there first, as they do, can write whatever the hell they want, and the same power law distributions that were alive in the early blogosphere work in their favor. It's the logic of Big Tech investment, of always chasing the next new thing. Somebody's got to look out for the good old thing, and I'm happy to take that on.
Yeah, I'm very happy that I'm not counting on this to make rent. It opens up a lot more topic space to write about. The thing that I miss is that there was a brief period when it seemed like people from a wide range of different walks of life were blogging on a hobby basis, but that seems to have faded out. Or possibly it's just Balkanized into a bunch of largely independent communities and platforms that are just next to impossible to discover.
So I've read a fair amount from YouTubers and streamers about this issue, and it's really important to highlight how much of this seems to be demand (or algorithm) driven. You'll see plenty of creators talking about how they wish they could branch out, be more experimental, spend more time with each video, play different games, and so on. But that doesn't seem to be what viewers want, so here we are.
Substack and blogging can actually run into the same issues, where the sort of articles that generate traffic and subscriptions isn't necessarily the most socially beneficial.
Oh, absolutely. That's been a problem with blogging from the get-go-- the stuff I'm happiest writing, and end up being most proud of, generally does terrible traffic. Meanwhile, I can generate endless clicks by writing about stuff that's either kind of trashy or that I'm just tired of talking about. Happily, I'm not relying on blogging income to make rent.
I think you and I stand for a stubborn tendency that was visible in early blogging and never went away (and thus is here still). I accept the argument that some form of modest monetization is important simply to make the point that writing is labor, labor should be compensated, etc.; my friends who were in the writing biz used to despair so much about early blogging because we were just giving away what they rightfully charged for without any sense of the profit-seeking circling around us looking to buy it all up. But I think there is still a line between "I do this largely for myself" and "I do this for a gig economy living" and in that line there is still something at stake about the public sphere and about the creative possibilities of blogging. The moment that this is just a gig and nothing more is the moment where you're having to chase the influencers, chase the "more attention", having to work every day to get some eyes on a link, having to do what the algorithms tell you to do, having to hire an SEO firm to boost you. I'm stubborn about this because I have the luxury of another living--I don't judge. But I do think that other gig world is captive to a structure that isn't really trying to raise up a better and richer ecosystem of conversation and thought. That includes Substack, which is very clearly sold on the single recipe that they think earns them money, which is newsletters that are singularly obsessed by one dominant theme--because they think (with some justice) that this is the only way into a heavily inhabited ecosystem for a new entrant. The people who got there first, as they do, can write whatever the hell they want, and the same power law distributions that were alive in the early blogosphere work in their favor. It's the logic of Big Tech investment, of always chasing the next new thing. Somebody's got to look out for the good old thing, and I'm happy to take that on.
Yeah, I'm very happy that I'm not counting on this to make rent. It opens up a lot more topic space to write about. The thing that I miss is that there was a brief period when it seemed like people from a wide range of different walks of life were blogging on a hobby basis, but that seems to have faded out. Or possibly it's just Balkanized into a bunch of largely independent communities and platforms that are just next to impossible to discover.
So I've read a fair amount from YouTubers and streamers about this issue, and it's really important to highlight how much of this seems to be demand (or algorithm) driven. You'll see plenty of creators talking about how they wish they could branch out, be more experimental, spend more time with each video, play different games, and so on. But that doesn't seem to be what viewers want, so here we are.
Substack and blogging can actually run into the same issues, where the sort of articles that generate traffic and subscriptions isn't necessarily the most socially beneficial.
Oh, absolutely. That's been a problem with blogging from the get-go-- the stuff I'm happiest writing, and end up being most proud of, generally does terrible traffic. Meanwhile, I can generate endless clicks by writing about stuff that's either kind of trashy or that I'm just tired of talking about. Happily, I'm not relying on blogging income to make rent.