alt Hacker NewsI find this study a bit weird because it doesn't really establish a baseline. If you look at "top 100" blogs in year n, I imagine that many of them will be dead in year n + 5 simply because people move on. So are we looking at the evidence of blogging going extinct, or just at the natural churn?
Also note that this specifically focuses on blogs designed to make money and dealing with general-interest stuff like fashion or travel. A lot of this has moved onto Instagram and TikTok as a byproduct of people using phones as their primary "content consumption" devices.
But I think the internet in general is moving away from bespoke, homebrew content. This is very visible even on HN, where the daily line-up contains corporate and university press releases + newspaper articles about as often as it contains personal blogs.
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> If you look at "top 100" blogs in year n, I imagine that many of them will be dead in year n + 5 simply because people move on.
This is a far more dubious hypothetical. I imagine that the top 100 of anything (that a lot of people do) that brings in income or fame will still be there in 5 years. They're the most successful, most profitable of the bunch. How many of the top 100 companies in terms of revenue do you imagine will disappear in 5 years? I'd guess around 0.0%.
"People move on" is a meaningless statement. Why were there so many colon cancer deaths over the past 5 years? Well, people move on. Why do people move on?
> Also note that this specifically focuses on blogs designed to make money
i.e. blogging, which once brought in money, doesn't seem to as much anymore. Why?
> Also note that this specifically focuses on blogs designed to make money and dealing with general-interest stuff like fashion or travel. A lot of this has moved onto Instagram and TikTok as a byproduct of people using phones as their primary "content consumption" devices
This needs to be repeated ad nauseum on HN.
For most people (especially those not working in jobs which require heavy amounts of writing, analysis, and reading), text is NOT the default method with which they interact and communicate information.
TikTok, IG reels, YouTube shorts, longer form YouTube content, podcasts, television, etc all feel "easier" and more "natural" for the vast majority of people.