I sometimes like blog-reply conversations, but I find them more disjointed and harder to follow. Often it feels like three people are each standing on street co

I sometimes like blog-reply conversations, but I find them more disjointed and harder to follow. Often it feels like three people are each standing on street corners with megaphones, vaguely gesturing in each others' directions but really, mainly talking to their own audiences, not engaging in direct conversation. It's the direction I've gone myself, but partly for selfish reasons: I want to "own" my more interesting essays by posting them on my own website, rather than on someone else's. I don't really monetize it, but I think that's another motivator leading people to withdraw their good writing to self-publish on a blog: 15 years ago you might've posted something on Usenet, a mailing list, or Kuro5hin, but today you want to publish it under your own personal brand, and collect the traffic. I think there are positive aspects to that, but the discussions and communities often feel less coherent as a result.