Three things killed the Blogosphere: 1. Money; 2. Celebrity culture; 3. Access.
If you are talking about 'a return to the “artisan, hand-crafted web” that was the old-time blogosphere' then you must go further back. The original Blogosphere was completely ad-free and anti-celebrity. These blogs were incredible, authentic and created by unknowns. SEO wasn't a thing and writers used interesting aliases. The names you've mentioned as 'big time bloggers' came later, along with monetization and popularity wars. Everyone currently talking about 'old school blogging' is forgetting what that actually was, pre-SEO rules and big names. Ownership of content has always been ... difficult. For those of us who started out on Blogger, we remember when the penny dropped: when you learned that you actually don't own your content once you publish ... and you either risked that, or moved to a platform you had to pay for (enter: commercialisation of everything on the internet; there are no 'free' spaces to play anymore).
As a few commenters have said, RSS readers were the best way to control what you wanted to see, and to discover more amazing blogs, without being forced to digest things you just weren't interested in. Whose time is more valuable now - the reader's or the writer's? Which viewpoint are we actually taking here?
We can't go backwards... unless there are legitimate, safe spaces to play online, and I don't know where that is anymore. A new model to support this needs to be born.
The underlying problem with all the various means of sharing content is that, generally speaking, human beings aren't all that interesting. No platform can fix that. Pine trees are actually more interesting than human beings, but because we aren't that interesting, we don't see it.
The other fundamental problem is that human generated content in all forms of media has become like the air we breath. Content is everywhere at all times and free, and while being important for our survival, we no longer value it, because it's just too accessible.
And so, no matter what we write, the average reader is going to power scroll through the piece, jumping randomly from here to there, typically on the hunt for something they can lazily reject, without having actually read most of that which they are rejecting. It's the human condition. I do it too. I'm doing it now. My guess is that the best writers have long since left us, because they finally lost faith in their audience, and got tired of talking to themselves.
What's really happening in the world of writing is that for most of us, most of the time who we are really writing to is we the writer. Like the rest of the human experience, what usually engages us the most is our inner conversation with ourselves.
Perhaps this formula might sum up the situation?
The more insightful an article, the smaller the audience.
But you have to pay for Substack subscriptions to get the full content in a lot of cases and it's expensive. It's in no way comparable to old-school blogs in that regard, from a reader's standpoint. They were all free! I love reading people's Substacks but it's frustrating because you can only pay to subscribe to so many. It's just frustrating to read what seems like an interesting post and then get cut off, so it’s always tempting to pay for more subscriptions.
I think RSS needs a mention because from the users point of view it allowed you to bring disparate content into the one manageable feed. Similarly, when google killer it’s RSS reader, it was the end of an era, for me at least.
By contrast today my inbox is a nightmare and my substack subscriptions are just making it worse. When I get the urge to “have a read” I used to go to twitter, but that’s becoming more problematic, and mastodon hasn’t filled the gap (yet). I miss the old rss reader days.
Also this review should consider podcasts. Why is audio different to text in terms of distribution and consumption (or at least, subscription)? In terms of the points raised here, podcasts now are much like blogs were 20 years ago.
I turned off email notifications for Substack and now just go to the app and get notifications on my screen. The emails got to be too much once I'd subscribed to a bunch.
Those of us who just plodded along with being long-winded have noticed not all that much difference. Maybe part of this is motivated by something other than the specific interfaces and platforms that invite us to use them.
Because I changed my entire blogging diet 10 years ago, I have not had the pleasure of watching John Cole tear his hair out over what has happened to his former party and how "peak wingnut" has gone beyond what could have been imagined when that phrase was coined. But that site was a great success in terms of traffic because the posts were very sharp and succinct and the whole community kept idiots out. Twitter may have stopped the knack for the community taking responsibility for the level of discussion they will tolerate because there are so many rewards for dunking on idiots.
Yes, but Substack itself has some complicated disincentives towards fully implementing that. They want individual Substacks to do the work of incentivizing people to read (and pay for) other ones, but they don't especially want to build conversational tools that are (as they would have to be) indifferent about who is paying for what. I suspect they'll eventually use clusters of low-to-medium subscription Substacks that are in conversation with one another as a map of who to bundle together under a single fee structure and that will likely be bad for those of us who are eclectic about how we pay attention to other blogs/Substacks/whatever.
Agreed. I'm planning an attempt at a mini-blogosphere, based on the idea of recommendations in return for free subscriptions. As you say, Substack doesn't make it easy.
Three things killed the Blogosphere: 1. Money; 2. Celebrity culture; 3. Access.
If you are talking about 'a return to the “artisan, hand-crafted web” that was the old-time blogosphere' then you must go further back. The original Blogosphere was completely ad-free and anti-celebrity. These blogs were incredible, authentic and created by unknowns. SEO wasn't a thing and writers used interesting aliases. The names you've mentioned as 'big time bloggers' came later, along with monetization and popularity wars. Everyone currently talking about 'old school blogging' is forgetting what that actually was, pre-SEO rules and big names. Ownership of content has always been ... difficult. For those of us who started out on Blogger, we remember when the penny dropped: when you learned that you actually don't own your content once you publish ... and you either risked that, or moved to a platform you had to pay for (enter: commercialisation of everything on the internet; there are no 'free' spaces to play anymore).
As a few commenters have said, RSS readers were the best way to control what you wanted to see, and to discover more amazing blogs, without being forced to digest things you just weren't interested in. Whose time is more valuable now - the reader's or the writer's? Which viewpoint are we actually taking here?
We can't go backwards... unless there are legitimate, safe spaces to play online, and I don't know where that is anymore. A new model to support this needs to be born.
The underlying problem with all the various means of sharing content is that, generally speaking, human beings aren't all that interesting. No platform can fix that. Pine trees are actually more interesting than human beings, but because we aren't that interesting, we don't see it.
The other fundamental problem is that human generated content in all forms of media has become like the air we breath. Content is everywhere at all times and free, and while being important for our survival, we no longer value it, because it's just too accessible.
And so, no matter what we write, the average reader is going to power scroll through the piece, jumping randomly from here to there, typically on the hunt for something they can lazily reject, without having actually read most of that which they are rejecting. It's the human condition. I do it too. I'm doing it now. My guess is that the best writers have long since left us, because they finally lost faith in their audience, and got tired of talking to themselves.
What's really happening in the world of writing is that for most of us, most of the time who we are really writing to is we the writer. Like the rest of the human experience, what usually engages us the most is our inner conversation with ourselves.
Perhaps this formula might sum up the situation?
The more insightful an article, the smaller the audience.
As a pine tree, I thank you. So validating.
But you have to pay for Substack subscriptions to get the full content in a lot of cases and it's expensive. It's in no way comparable to old-school blogs in that regard, from a reader's standpoint. They were all free! I love reading people's Substacks but it's frustrating because you can only pay to subscribe to so many. It's just frustrating to read what seems like an interesting post and then get cut off, so it’s always tempting to pay for more subscriptions.
I think RSS needs a mention because from the users point of view it allowed you to bring disparate content into the one manageable feed. Similarly, when google killer it’s RSS reader, it was the end of an era, for me at least.
By contrast today my inbox is a nightmare and my substack subscriptions are just making it worse. When I get the urge to “have a read” I used to go to twitter, but that’s becoming more problematic, and mastodon hasn’t filled the gap (yet). I miss the old rss reader days.
Also this review should consider podcasts. Why is audio different to text in terms of distribution and consumption (or at least, subscription)? In terms of the points raised here, podcasts now are much like blogs were 20 years ago.
I turned off email notifications for Substack and now just go to the app and get notifications on my screen. The emails got to be too much once I'd subscribed to a bunch.
Try feedly dot com. It's a great RSS reader and you can add substack newsletters, too.
Those of us who just plodded along with being long-winded have noticed not all that much difference. Maybe part of this is motivated by something other than the specific interfaces and platforms that invite us to use them.
Because I changed my entire blogging diet 10 years ago, I have not had the pleasure of watching John Cole tear his hair out over what has happened to his former party and how "peak wingnut" has gone beyond what could have been imagined when that phrase was coined. But that site was a great success in terms of traffic because the posts were very sharp and succinct and the whole community kept idiots out. Twitter may have stopped the knack for the community taking responsibility for the level of discussion they will tolerate because there are so many rewards for dunking on idiots.
A big problem is the lack of interaction between Substacks. The tools (recommendations and sharing) are there, but it's not happening yet.
Yes, but Substack itself has some complicated disincentives towards fully implementing that. They want individual Substacks to do the work of incentivizing people to read (and pay for) other ones, but they don't especially want to build conversational tools that are (as they would have to be) indifferent about who is paying for what. I suspect they'll eventually use clusters of low-to-medium subscription Substacks that are in conversation with one another as a map of who to bundle together under a single fee structure and that will likely be bad for those of us who are eclectic about how we pay attention to other blogs/Substacks/whatever.
Agreed. I'm planning an attempt at a mini-blogosphere, based on the idea of recommendations in return for free subscriptions. As you say, Substack doesn't make it easy.
Very enjoyable, Dan.