This, I think, is almost always worth it. All the other stuff is a welcome positive externality.
For example, readership:
- I don't write for an audience, rather to sort my thoughts out, so I don't mind "looking stupid" or being wrong.
- My writing is longform, without regard to "snappiness" or whatever people believe gets content distribution in a world of chopped up attention spans.
- I don't have analytics or tracking of any kind, and so it's been such a pleasant surprise to hear from strangers that they read the blog and _like_ it!
- Also, https://xkcd.com/386/ "Duty calls" is real, and I've had the nicest conversations by being wrong (or obtuse)!
Here's how it got started... like all civilized blogging re-starts, it is a long apology https://www.evalapply.org/posts/hello-world/ :)
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edit: missed a point