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Comment by solarengineer | Hacker News Reader

How do you all discover blogs?

I used to discover blogs via the Yahoo Directory, blog rolls (where we mention others' blogs as external links to follow up), Live Journal's listing, and cross-referencing of blog posts. Google search used to surface blog posts too.

Now it's all on Medium - where I don't grudge those who want reliable hosting+discoverability and want to get paid for content, and where Medium charges for this. But I dislike that the content is "locked up" at Medium. I don't quite know how to explain this dislike, and I welcome any points of view that might help make this dislike go away.

View on HN

probably worth mentioning this HN thread: "Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?" with 273 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27302195

I have discovered many blogs reading HN...

Yeah -- off the top of my head:

danluu.com, plover.com, ciechanow.ski, essays by pg and many others have very high quality writing and are insightful.

I don't accept there is a shortage of blogs.

I’ve got one topic that gets a lot of referral traffic, and then people follow the other more rambling personal stories. Twitter and YouTube drive a lot of traffic too.

I had the same experience. Have a few very popular posts that rank quite high even on Google (with absolutely no SEO bullshit done to them) but they represent maybe 5% of what I wrote about.

People find me through those posts and end up sticky around for the more personal/rambly stuff.

there's a shortage of blog reading, meaning theres less of an incentive to write.

I find blogs by periodically asking my friends for suggestions. I recently made my list of favorites:

https://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/favblogs.html

From other blogs. People link to other blogs all the time, and every few weeks I find a gem this way.

Check out my blog: https://hegelsbagels.net/

I don't think you have to justify or challenge your dislike for Medium. It's pretty reader-hostile. I get why authors write on it but I personally click away every time I get hit with the paywall.

typically in the comments sections of other blogs, when someone links them. Slatestarcodex, Ecosophia, and Charles Eisenstein are my current favourites.

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