Ask HN: Is starting a personal blog still worth it in the age of AI?

If you have to ask, then the answer is most likely no.

The most interesting blogs I read are the people that don't really care and are just creating things they find interesting.

As a bit of personal advice from a former blogger who had a million+ visitors per year, it's not about anything except your readers and the community you build. AI might have facts on everything, but AI content will not build a community and enrich the people's lives who engage with the site.

When everything else is a computer, be a human.

> What made it worth it for you?

Learning to hit publish even when you're full of doubt is the cure for self-doubt. Stop letting doubt rule your life and do the things you want to do!

> Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?

My recommendation, short posts at least once a week revolving around a single topic

> If you were starting today, what would you do differently?

I would not have built my own blog from scratch, I would just use one of the many fine options out there. Be realistic, you likely will not get many readers, at least not for a while. The value of blogging is what you learn about writing and the topic you write about it.

It's worth being very clear about the reasons for it. You say you're not trying to build a media business, and want to build a "public notebook", but you imply you're looking for career/networking opportunities. You're also not clear if the "learning" is for you as the author, or for the reader.

If you want to have your content discovered online, I'd say you might be in for some trouble, although I don't think AI is the cause, only an accelerator on that. Blogs for readers learning are probably in decline, you're unlikely to get any outreach based on your posts for networking.

However if, like me, the writing process is the point – you're trying to clarify your thoughts, learn something new yourself, or have a document you can share with colleagues when they ask you to explain your opinions, I think blogging is valuable. While you won't get direct outreach, you can share it on your CV or send it to recruiters and you might get noticed when applying for jobs.

You have to realize ai is way more trash than you actually give it credit for.

Also with the shoveling of it down the people's throats, more people want authentic human experiences.

AI doesn't change anything. If it was worth doing it is still worth doing.

I have a personal technical blog. I decided a long time ago I don’t care if anyone reads it. My purpose for writing is an educational exercise for myself. Publishing on the web is kind of just a forcing function for quality.

I've been writing on my blog for 9 years. Still feel the same blockers you do on every new post.

For me, the main motivation is that I enjoy reading other people's blogs, and hopefully my posts give someone ekse a similar enjoyment

I had a few attempts to lower the bar (tags for low effort, short and shitpost so far), but it feels like a crutch and hasn't worked long term for me.

Human always have thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Writing them down is already a cool thing. If AI has those too, then it should start its own blog :)

If anything, it's maybe even more worth doing this in the age of LLMs since "nobody is going to read this" is probably no longer true!

LLMs are likely more attentive readers than most human beings and in a way a blog might achieve even greater reach by virtue of being read by an LLM and incorporated into its "understanding of the world." (Or whatever is the right metaphor.)

AI will scrape your blog and your personal philosophy will eventually become a part of collective Human Intelligence. That's a pretty good reason to blog imo.

"If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking." - Leslie Lamport

Writing a blog entry to simply clarify your own thinking makes it worth it.

Personally I wouldn't let AI influence this decision at all.

Today's AI is built on human-made content, and if we want "more" AI then we will need more human-made stuff. So it's a moot point. Unless you are OK with AI causing a plateau in human progress, don't let it get in the way of you (a human) from making progress.

That said, I cannot really comment on your first or third blockers. I have the exact same problems.

In the first place, write for yourself.

I don’t do it often anymore (lack of time) but used to be a somewhat active blogger. It helped with my own understanding of the topics I wrote about.

> What made it worth it for you?

Opportunities. You don't need many readers, you just need the right readers. I'm a big believer in making your own luck - putting things in place that make luck more likely to strike. Having a collection of writing online that people might stumble onto is very effective way of doing that.

> What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?

I've written a bunch about this in the past. TLDR version:

- Stuff I've learned: TIL style posts that describe something I've learned recently

- Stuff I've found: links to things that are useful, with an explanation of why they are useful

- Stuff I've built: descriptions of projects I've completed

What to blog about: https://simonwillison.net/2022/Nov/6/what-to-blog-about/

My approach to running a link blog: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/22/link-blog/

> Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?

TILs are an incredibly liberating format. You don't need to be describing something that's never been written about before - just something that's new to you today.

> If you were starting today, what would you do differently

I'd use static publishing on GitHub Pages on myname.github.io so I don't even need to run any web hosting or buy a domain name.

Long time blogger here.

1) AI absolutely makes new blogs hard to get any traffic, unless you are already famous somewhere else

2) That said it’s still worth writing even if it’s just for yourself

You'll be original and put your original spin to it. It's worth it.

Writing is cathartic, but you already know this.

I have a small personal blog myself.

AI can explain most topics better than I can

This one is demonstrably false. Your personal written style is what's important. Also, you have hands-on experience, which is also demonstrably more than any "AI" has. I urge you to ignore this kind of doubt or consideration.

- What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?

For learning, "book report" type posts, just to solidify what I've read in my mind, maybe drive a little experimentation to ensure I've concluded correctly. I've decided not to collect any metrics so that I don't follow from behind, so that I don't end up doing clickbait. Career and network opportunities have not arisen from my blog.

My "public notebook" posts get more traffic, and I've referred back to them, but for me, these are mostly Linux sysadmin topics. I'd wager these are most valuable to people that find them for very specific problems, like seeing LLDP info from inside a WiFi access point or fixing GRUB problems on particular hardware.

- Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?

I have not discovered anything for this, alas. I use Hugo, I have a couple of little shell scripts to do monthly counts of finished vs draft articles. I try to stay at or above 5 posts a month. I'm not sure that helps lower the bar, which I interpret as "provide motivation to post".

What would I do differently? Start a blog years before I actually did so.

I'm happy to correspond, my email is in my HN profile.

I’m starting a personal one because I’d like to improve my understanding and articulation of a few things.

I may be in the minority, perhaps even a minority of one, but I disagree that publishing a blog is worthwhile even if nobody reads it. I honestly don't understand the point. Write a diary for yourself if you want, fine, but what exactly are you gaining by putting it out there? It's even worse if you have to force yourself to do it, which appears to be the case here. Force yourself to exercise every day, because that's good for your physical health, but is blogging good for your health?

Writing in public is performance art. Some people are naturally performance artists and need to perform to satisfy some internal urge. If you're not one of them, don't let anyone else convince you that you need to be one. It's ok to not blog. The idea that everyone should have a blog is completely unjustified.

I read another comment that said you should write blog posts at least once a week. That sounds a lot like a job. An unpaid job at that. Forget this silly peer pressure.

too many variabils! too many douts! shtack overphlow! shegmentation fawlt! kore dumph! jfdi!

I started blogging long before AI became mainstream, but I'd say: totally worth it.

Re blockers:

- Novelty: I routinely search for very niche, "boring" information, and am disappointed by how few in-depth blogposts I find.

- “AI can explain most topics better than I can”. I doubt it! I rarely find current AI as valuable as a good blog post. It tends to be shallow and regress to the mean, and b/c of hallucinations it's untrustworthy, so a lot of time is wasted fact-checking.

- Fear of shipping: if it isn't relevant, nobody will read it (unless you're already famous)

Re questions:

- What made it worth it for you?

Clarifying my thoughts, connecting with strangers who think about the same things, the leverage "having a platform" produces (it opens a lot of doors), and gaining prestige in certain niches.

- What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?

I don't think this is simple to answer until the heat death of the universe. Traffic stats is a very poor estimator of value delivered. Which posts I am most proud of, and how much traffic they got, are weakly correlated.

- Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?

Things that you are obsessed with. It's a tonne of work writing a good post, and sometimes you publish it and nobody cares, so it has to be intrinsically rewarding.

- If you were starting today, what would you do differently?

I don't know! Probably put less effort into trying to appear intelligent/impressive, which rarely works anyway.

These are my off-the-top thoughts based on over a decade of blogging.

Given the way you're framing this no, it's not worth it for you to blog. Using words like "shipping","low-signal", "networking". And odd ideas like blog posts having to "work" and provide some tangible gain. These are for-profit concepts so I assume you want to do this to make money or meet people to allow you to make money.

There is no money in blogs if there ever was. The money moved away to social media a long time ago. Leave the blogs to human people talking to each other and showing off their gardens and pets and hobbies.

It's about writing. It's about finishing something and getting it out there. The intellectual stimulation of the act of writing is the whole point. Write into the void, even. But write.

Writing isn't about the produced artifact, it's about the process of taking abstract thought patterns and translating them into written text. In the same way that art isn't about coloured pixels on a screen or paint on a canvas. In our new world of AI slop, human writing is becoming more important, not less important.

> “Nobody needs this” / “It’s not original”

We need it more than ever. Who cares if it's not original, AI slop isn't original either.

> “AI can explain most topics better than I can”

Don't write tutorials.

> A bit of fear: shipping something that feels naive or low-signal

Life is about overcoming your fears.