Hacker News Reader

Comment by Bakary | Hacker News Reader

His blogging golden age was in reality a time where there were simply far fewer users in general, and they were far more likely to be the type to seek out this sort of content and the activist relationship with the online world that he describes.

Most people aren't really interested in that sort of discourse, or in changing the world, or in intellectual biodiversity and alternate views. The web wasn't killed by companies, it selected the companies that catered most to what most people actually want out of the web.

He confuses his loss of status as a sign of the web's destruction but it is more a case of failing to capture the interest of changing demographics.

View on HN

That is too simplified look about what he is complaining about.

Internet in current state doesn't offer meaningful way for humans to communicate and connect with each other - it has turned from Agora into a dog walking space with erected poles to urinate on them - that is a great way to communicate for dogs, but a really big setback from the hopes that internet initially gave(for humans).

facebook demographics has changed a lot as well - it is getting popularity in non-English speaking world, but it is on a path of decline. I do not use facebook(and many friends are off facebook as well), but my mother interestingly does use facebook a lot, because it is a great tool to do marketing - even if the marketing consists of spreading ideas. The problem about mentioned social apps is that facebook, twitter, instagram can't be treated as something more than tools for marketing and approaching them as communication tools is a failure. Blogs initially offered more as a tools for communication, though most of them nowadays have evolved into online TV, to better serve the audience. Even some journalist I was following and reading articles now does regular podcast on youtube - though most of the reason for it is that this way is easier to earn money.

"The web wasn't killed by companies, it selected the companies that catered most to what most people actually want out of the web." That is false statement from the marketing point of view, where people actually do not know what they want. There are many clones of apps out there and even with better functionality and all the problems fixed that are present on current apps an we can wonder why no one uses them... There are also too many examples of how some of the great companies were killed off by intent and has nothing to do with how web is functioning whatsoever.

But the old ways of communication haven't gone anywhere.

There are still blogs, in a better shape than ever, with Patreon or Substack to help financially support them.

There are still forums for specific topics, standalone, as subreddits, all the way to stackexchange.

Three is a ton of IMs for any taste, as decentralized as you may want.

Even the old Fidonet is born again as Mastodon, you can run your own node, or take a "point" on an existing node.

The thing is, of course, that 99% of the audience are in the swamps of Facebook, or in the gladiator arena of Twitter, or the beauty contest of Instagram.

These 99% were not online in 1993. They have little interest in blogs, forums, detailed discussions on deep topics, botherations about privacy, any technical details. They just want to talk to their relatives, share some vacation photos, listen to music, watch videos of funny cats. This is the norm. This is fine.

When the 99% moved in, the old internet did not disappear, it just was shown the scale: "nerds" (not necessarily computer nerds) vs "the rest of the population".

Deal with it.

It is tempting to discuss demographics, however it is still true there is a group of people, that still enjoys reading, and this part is left behind by social media.

Since you can not link from insta and tiktok, you can not share longer meaningful articles. And even if you do, external links are ranked lower by social media platforms.

Maybe, authors should create videos, however it seems people who have important things to say shy from video form. The question is if really video is the right choice for valuable content, or is not.

Personally I think it is not a right medium for valuable content, therefore social media lacking features supporting text are just forcing not only enthusiastic readers, but also new demographics to consume brain fast-food.

And it really is sad considering how much value has the Internet. I am thus glad that this place still exists.

I don't think it's a zero-sum game where people would consume quality, in-depth content if not for the existence the shallow sort.

These authors you describe could try to change the format for a broader audience, but their work would still be fundamentally uninteresting to the latter. Even if there were very few alternative options available, most people would still not generally pursue an interest in such content. The current torrent of content that they do like just turns what is already a very unlikely proposition with perfect conditions into a near impossibility.

The underlying mechanism is that the group you describe as still enjoying reading doesn't have much use for social media to begin with. It's not just them being left behind, but rather having better options elsewhere for what they want to experience. I would go as far as to say that social media is probably anathema to them as it runs against many of their core ideals and instincts.

But let's be honest: most content defined as high-quality in direct opposition to what is found on social media is often not that insightful or actually helpful in shaping lives for the better. I believe it is a trap to consider HN as better than brain fast-food, to name one example.

There are still places to share those links, places that didn't exist before, and that reach a larger demographic.

Blogging is getting a smaller share of a much larger pie, but in absolute terms, it's not going anywhere.

Pretty much everyone I followed as a blogger circa 2006-08 is still writing. Generally they’ve moved on to greater prominence. A substantial chunk of them are on substack now.

You don’t have blogrolls anymore nor a blogosphere, but the writers are all there. It’s just those of us who follow that are now a tiny fraction of users. But the rewards to that kind of writing have actually increased.

This is absolutely the correct read into this. Kudos for seeing this matter so clearly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com