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Re:Technology/Blogs, (sdf.org), 12/17/2018
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User alexschroeder was reminiscing about blogs today[1]. His
comments recalled my mind to a time when I was on blogger
and blogspot (were they the same? eventually?), wordpress,
and a few others. I never really pondered on what made me
leave, or what made others leave. I guess I always figured
it was just "social media" that killed the blogs.
I think alex brings up an interesting possiblity, that the
blogs were killed because commenting was too much of a pain
in the neck. Certainly, interaction on social media
platforms was always more clear-cut than on blogs (at least
for me) because you already had your audience filtered out.
On a blog, you had spammers and trolls that could come out
of the woodwork at any time, filling your comment section
with nonsense that you'd have to moderate. On social media,
that really didn't happen as much.
It was these spammers and jerks that made commenting such a
pain in the neck, requiring logins and captchas and all
sorts of stupidity. After that, it was the data-mongers, the
conglomorates and their endless worship of behavioral
information that ruined the simple logins (and more
recently, the captchas, with their shadow-work of having you
identify photos for them!) In essense, the whole thing is a
mess because of money grubbers and selfish jerks.
Of course, I'm not bitter. My blogs weren't really the type
that people would comment on, aside from an occasional
question. But, it's the principle of the thing!
Alex also mentioned gopher, and the tendency for people to
simply reply to a phlog by posting their reply on their own
phlog. It's probably clear that I enjoy this format. The
thing about it is, it's the least intrusive reply possible.
No one has to read my reply, not even the author of the
original content. No one has to moderate what I say,
because I'm just yammering on my own platform, not
theirs. Sure, it means that when you author something,
you're just puting it out there into the ether without any
real knowledge of what happens with it. Yes, it means that
back-and-forth conversations can get lost or missed or
confused. But it also means simplicity, equality, and
thought. It means that to reply, you have to be willing to
put yourself out there not only for someone else's readers,
but for your own readers as well. To me, there are definite
benefits.
As to the future of blogs, I have nothing to say on the
subject. I've deleted most of mine; some of them I've even
asked archive.org to delete. Perhaps I'll try again someday,
when someone invents "the constrained web" and brings sanity
back into the www picture.
[1]
gopher://alexschroeder.ch:70/02018-12-17_What_killed_the_blogs%3f
