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Comment by sp4cemoneky | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, is it really that bad that the web is dead? I understand the value of a forum, but as far as the content is concerned if we were to go back to the days of physical magazines I wouldn't be upset.

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It is not the medium that is dying, rather it is the content that is dying. People are saying the web is dying because there's no longer financial incentive for actual humans to create content (there may be other incentives, and those types of forms may flourish). That goes equally for other media as well: print, digital, it doesn't matter.

There's an incentive to create content, but it's skewed towards video (or towards creating content of any sort when you already have a fan base).

Trying to create a fan base with the written word in 2025 is probably a bad idea.

Only that there is no way back. Those physical magazines would contain the same AI generated content.

Humans still write for sites behind paywalls like Wired, WSJ, FT, NatGeo, NYT, and The Economist, but I don't hear anyone say "I'm finally going to pay for good content written by humans." Instead, all I hear is people complaining about the flood of AI-generated crap.

My advice: Subscribe to one or two sites or newsletters, and all your problems are solved.

I don't know, I personally miss subscriptions to physical, there is the wait, there is also the whole reading in physical reality experience.

Also, whilst I am sure the quality of payed online magazines is better, once you start reading the cheap/free online crap, it is impossible to switch to a higher quality, and I always start my day with the cheap crap.

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