We need to stop this treadmill of trying to "build reputation" and stop focusing on "symbolic capital" and "clout" and whatever else bloggers are going after. You're not going to get it, and even if you do, you're not going to be able to "monetize" it.
If you have a need to write, write. Maybe a handful of actual people will read it, maybe not. But, I wouldn't try to do it for a living. The reward will have to be the cathartic process of writing itself, and not in how much attention it gets, how much it "blows up" or how viral it gets.
What I need is for my writing to spread enough that I can receive opportunities to have my programming ability evaluated.
The reason I write about programming is that, in the past, some readers found my programming essays interesting, and that led to chances for me to be tested. I had to leave graduate school because of financial problems, and I did not graduate from a prestigious university.
So this is not simply about monetizing writing. It is a struggle to receive opportunities. Those are fundamentally different things.
Some people may be happy writing things that nobody reads. But many people are happier when they can share their writing and let their values collide with those of others.
Dead internet manifest.
It's going to be a serious problem and I've already seen sites that are down 90% in traffic simply because AI is scraiping them, answering the questions themselves and never providing a linkback.
I'm a copywriter and I used to get hired to write posts on behalf of founders on LinkedIn or for their company blog.
Now, the last three jobs I had were all focused on sending cold email.
I am losing motivation to put out hard-earned information if it's all going to get stolen. I'm just training 3 companies to better capture the value of my hard work. Why even bother?
I live from that website. I have poured 9 years of my life into it. It's known by everyone locally. In a year or two I won't be able to cover my bills anymore. I could go back to my old job, but it's also getting automated.
I'm just so tired.
It has been virtually impossible to find real information in some areas if you don't personally know which website is reliable or not. That's why we devs used to go to StackOverflow, and people use site:reddit.com when searching Google. LLMs just exacerbated all of that, but it was already happening.
I managed to get some great discussions through sharing my posts on Reddit and HN.