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While the discoverability issue may have accelerated the decline of blogs, I suspect that it’s not the main problem. It takes more cognitive overhead to follow

While the discoverability issue may have accelerated the decline of blogs, I suspect that it’s not the main problem. It takes more cognitive overhead to follow and visit multiple blogs as opposed to following multiple subreddits. Even if you are willing to expend that cognitive overhead, most people aren’t nowadays. Because of that, bloggers are less likely to publish (smaller audience + less engagement = smaller incentive to publish). That lowers the average quality of blogs, turning away even their most ardent advocates. This was all inevitable. The mere existence of a popular meta-forum attenuates traditional blogs and forums.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> It takes more cognitive overhead to follow and visit multiple blogs as opposed to following multiple subreddits. This is the problem solved by RSS.
fivre 6y ago
> cognitive overhead to follow and visit multiple blogs Didn't used to be an issue really. Then Google killed off Reader and nothing filled the void fast enough.
Darkphibre 6y ago
Not to mention after a certain number of 'followed' subreddits, Reddit will actually only show you a subset each day on your front page. It allows for smaller subreddits to bubble up occasionally, but you're never guaranteed to see the latest from everything you've subscribed to.
zrm 6y ago
> Even if you are willing to expend that cognitive overhead, most people aren’t nowadays. Shouldn't this cancel out against there being more people though? If people are 90% less likely to want to read long blog posts but there are ten times more people on the internet, you should still have about the same number of readers, all else equal. > Because of that, bloggers are less likely to publish (smaller audience + less engagement = smaller incentive to publish). That lowers the average quality of blogs, turning away even their most ardent advocates. This conclusion may be right but it's also explained by the discoverability problem. If people can't find you then your audience is too small and you give up. > This was all inevitable. The mere existence of a popular meta-forum attenuates traditional blogs and forums. Blogs and forums are completely different things. https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/ https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/ https://www.popehat.com/ https://www.popehat.com/ https://www.schneier.com/blog https://www.schneier.com/blog https://www.joelonsoftware.com/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/ Reddit has its uses but it is not a substitute for these.

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> It takes more cognitive overhead to follow and visit multiple blogs as opposed to following multiple subreddits. This is the problem solved by RSS.

fivre 6y ago

> cognitive overhead to follow and visit multiple blogs Didn't used to be an issue really. Then Google killed off Reader and nothing filled the void fast enough.

Darkphibre 6y ago

Not to mention after a certain number of 'followed' subreddits, Reddit will actually only show you a subset each day on your front page. It allows for smaller subreddits to bubble up occasionally, but you're never guaranteed to see the latest from everything you've subscribed to.

zrm 6y ago

> Even if you are willing to expend that cognitive overhead, most people aren’t nowadays. Shouldn't this cancel out against there being more people though? If people are 90% less likely to want to read long blog posts but there are ten times more people on the internet, you should still have about the same number of readers, all else equal. > Because of that, bloggers are less likely to publish (smaller audience + less engagement = smaller incentive to publish). That lowers the average quality of blogs, turning away even their most ardent advocates. This conclusion may be right but it's also explained by the discoverability problem. If people can't find you then your audience is too small and you give up. > This was all inevitable. The mere existence of a popular meta-forum attenuates traditional blogs and forums. Blogs and forums are completely different things. https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/ https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/ https://www.popehat.com/ https://www.popehat.com/ https://www.schneier.com/blog https://www.schneier.com/blog https://www.joelonsoftware.com/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/ Reddit has its uses but it is not a substitute for these.