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> The blogs the author misses aren't written to make money off of ad traffic, they were just written to put down ideas. This is what I've been pointing out for

by pmlnr 6y ago

> The blogs the author misses aren't written to make money off of ad traffic, they were just written to put down ideas. This is what I've been pointing out for years as the lost core of the internet.

freehunter 6y ago
It seems like this is a cultural shift in society as well. There are no more hobbies, everything is a side hustle and if you can’t turn a profit from it, it’s not worth doing. I’m not an economist or sociologist so I can’t Even pretend to understand why this is, but it’s a trend I’ve noticed over the past few years.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Not my experience at all. The mods plus fanmade expansions community is bigger than ever. And so is open source. Way more stuff is free now than ever before.
  - neutronicus 6y ago
    Open source has a huge "personal brand-building" aspect to it
  - freehunter 6y ago
    It's not about giving things away for free, it's about doing things you like to do just for your own satisfaction. While there is a lot of that in the mods and open source space, there's also a lot of resume building, portfolio projects, etc. There's an insane amount of pressure to always be "shipping to production" no matter if your hobby is crocheting, gardening, writing code, blogging, building robots, playing music, painting, etc. Patreon, Etsy, OnlyFans, Kickstarter, and even Github (just to scratch the surface) all serve to put pressure on creators to turn their hobbies into second jobs.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      I'm sorry you feel this way, but I do not think this is true for most creators. Too many of my friends have made wonderful things for the sake of it. And they're so self-effacing, they won't even mention these things.
      - danjac 6y ago
        Not judging you or your friends, but perhaps those who can do hobbies just for fun are in a position of privilege (enough time, money, financial and professional security) to be able to do so? The "hustle culture" is very real and is I think a side effect of the gig economy and the end of the 9-5 secure job with its strict boundaries of work and leisure time. If you still have that kind of job it's easier to have hobbies with no outcome than personal satisfaction (assuming no other "distractions" like small children). Most creators I happen to know are hustling, whether on Github or Wordpress or Etsy or IRL, either trying to make some money on the side or building a portfolio for their career or to help them score their next gig. Those that aren't are retired or have some secure, traditional 9-5.
        renewiltord 6y ago
        Interesting. It's exactly the opposite. The guys I'm talking about are all running their own startups or at startups. So definitely not 9-5s.
- donaldcuckman 6y ago
  100% agree
- Kaze404 6y ago
  I've been saying for years that people need to stop pressuring themselves into being good at their hobbies. Have fun first, who cares if you can't sing/draw/paint?
- r_c_a_d 6y ago
  Is that true? Or is it just the case that people trying to make a profit have learned how to promote themselves to an extent that drowns out the hobbyists? I had some hobby pages in the 1990s that got a lot of views and came high up in search results. None of them were ever deliberately publicised. I doubt that any of my material would show in the top 1000 of any web search today.
- anthonypasq 6y ago
  This seems to be a function of the people you hang around with. Hobbies for most people are a way to spend money, not make it. No one I know has "side hustles"
blobbers 6y ago
The internet has stopped being an internet but rather being a few large intranets.
- state_less 6y ago
  It’s the corporate internet, upload/download ratio, it’s the lack of IP address space. It’s social media, it’s private blogging platforms and it’s the plight for power. It's the way you're given knowledge, slow with thought control and subtle hints It's the fast talk they use to abuse and feed my brain It stretches for as far as the eye can see It's reality, fuck it, it's everything but me Atmosphere - Scapegoat, with some blogging additions
  - pcdoodle 6y ago
    Hell yeah! Never thought to find an Atmosphere reference in the comments @ HN.
chrisandchips 6y ago
I think it lives on in big platforms like Reddit, but I agree that it used to be far more prevalent on the net than it is. Youtube is a good example. It used to be so fun to just throw up videos on the internet, without caring how far they would really go. I definitely think there are great content creators on it nowadays and I'm glad that they're being paid for their hard work, but it still feels like we've lost something.
passthejoe 6y ago
It's VERY hard to make money with Google AdSense types of programs. The volume of traffic you need is so high that if you're there, it probably "pays" to sell the ads yourself and keep all the $$$. But that's hella difficult. Almost all news organizations -- they're not bloggers but chances are they're using blogging software (mostly WordPress) -- have figured this out. And they're still not making enough money from advertising. Hence subscriptions. Bloggers can go this route directly with https://substack.com https://substack.com. Google-owned YouTube's willingness to compensate those who make popular videos has fueled that service's growth and helped it draw a young audience. The fact that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have no way of "paying" its top performers, as it were, is interesting. You get paid in eyeballs. In exposure. Since the pay for blogs is usually non-existent, there's some value in the "likes," and most people who envision making money off of their social-media/internet presence need to get a side hustle to their side hustle -- a product they can make and sell.

by pmlnr 6y ago

> The blogs the author misses aren't written to make money off of ad traffic, they were just written to put down ideas. This is what I've been pointing out for years as the lost core of the internet.

freehunter 6y ago

It seems like this is a cultural shift in society as well. There are no more hobbies, everything is a side hustle and if you can’t turn a profit from it, it’s not worth doing. I’m not an economist or sociologist so I can’t Even pretend to understand why this is, but it’s a trend I’ve noticed over the past few years.

renewiltord 6y ago
Not my experience at all. The mods plus fanmade expansions community is bigger than ever. And so is open source. Way more stuff is free now than ever before.
- neutronicus 6y ago
  Open source has a huge "personal brand-building" aspect to it
- freehunter 6y ago
  It's not about giving things away for free, it's about doing things you like to do just for your own satisfaction. While there is a lot of that in the mods and open source space, there's also a lot of resume building, portfolio projects, etc. There's an insane amount of pressure to always be "shipping to production" no matter if your hobby is crocheting, gardening, writing code, blogging, building robots, playing music, painting, etc. Patreon, Etsy, OnlyFans, Kickstarter, and even Github (just to scratch the surface) all serve to put pressure on creators to turn their hobbies into second jobs.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    I'm sorry you feel this way, but I do not think this is true for most creators. Too many of my friends have made wonderful things for the sake of it. And they're so self-effacing, they won't even mention these things.
    - danjac 6y ago
      Not judging you or your friends, but perhaps those who can do hobbies just for fun are in a position of privilege (enough time, money, financial and professional security) to be able to do so? The "hustle culture" is very real and is I think a side effect of the gig economy and the end of the 9-5 secure job with its strict boundaries of work and leisure time. If you still have that kind of job it's easier to have hobbies with no outcome than personal satisfaction (assuming no other "distractions" like small children). Most creators I happen to know are hustling, whether on Github or Wordpress or Etsy or IRL, either trying to make some money on the side or building a portfolio for their career or to help them score their next gig. Those that aren't are retired or have some secure, traditional 9-5.
      - renewiltord 6y ago
        Interesting. It's exactly the opposite. The guys I'm talking about are all running their own startups or at startups. So definitely not 9-5s.
donaldcuckman 6y ago
100% agree
Kaze404 6y ago
I've been saying for years that people need to stop pressuring themselves into being good at their hobbies. Have fun first, who cares if you can't sing/draw/paint?
r_c_a_d 6y ago
Is that true? Or is it just the case that people trying to make a profit have learned how to promote themselves to an extent that drowns out the hobbyists? I had some hobby pages in the 1990s that got a lot of views and came high up in search results. None of them were ever deliberately publicised. I doubt that any of my material would show in the top 1000 of any web search today.
anthonypasq 6y ago
This seems to be a function of the people you hang around with. Hobbies for most people are a way to spend money, not make it. No one I know has "side hustles"

blobbers 6y ago

The internet has stopped being an internet but rather being a few large intranets.

state_less 6y ago
It’s the corporate internet, upload/download ratio, it’s the lack of IP address space. It’s social media, it’s private blogging platforms and it’s the plight for power. It's the way you're given knowledge, slow with thought control and subtle hints It's the fast talk they use to abuse and feed my brain It stretches for as far as the eye can see It's reality, fuck it, it's everything but me Atmosphere - Scapegoat, with some blogging additions
- pcdoodle 6y ago
  Hell yeah! Never thought to find an Atmosphere reference in the comments @ HN.

chrisandchips 6y ago

I think it lives on in big platforms like Reddit, but I agree that it used to be far more prevalent on the net than it is. Youtube is a good example. It used to be so fun to just throw up videos on the internet, without caring how far they would really go. I definitely think there are great content creators on it nowadays and I'm glad that they're being paid for their hard work, but it still feels like we've lost something.

passthejoe 6y ago

It's VERY hard to make money with Google AdSense types of programs. The volume of traffic you need is so high that if you're there, it probably "pays" to sell the ads yourself and keep all the $$$. But that's hella difficult. Almost all news organizations -- they're not bloggers but chances are they're using blogging software (mostly WordPress) -- have figured this out. And they're still not making enough money from advertising. Hence subscriptions. Bloggers can go this route directly with https://substack.com https://substack.com. Google-owned YouTube's willingness to compensate those who make popular videos has fueled that service's growth and helped it draw a young audience. The fact that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have no way of "paying" its top performers, as it were, is interesting. You get paid in eyeballs. In exposure. Since the pay for blogs is usually non-existent, there's some value in the "likes," and most people who envision making money off of their social-media/internet presence need to get a side hustle to their side hustle -- a product they can make and sell.