Hacker News Reader

Comment by bachmeier | Hacker News Reader

> the mainstream public moved on

I'd really like to see some good data on this, because it's not my experience. I probably read more blogs today than I did 10 years ago. I see tons of sharing of blog posts and website content on social media. It's true that the narrow sliver of people making a living as content creators may have moved on, but I just don't see that the "mainstream public" has.

View on HN

And if we're just talking certain subjects, like recipe blogs for example (and I'll give you paragraphs of my life experience above each recipe), those seem to be doing very well. I know I access those (and grumble about how much I have to scroll to get to the actual receipe) about 2-3 times a week when cooking, usually.

The Google Trend of the search term "blog" probably gives a good indication of the change in widespread interest:

https://i.imgur.com/I4jLBo0.jpg

Given the rise in social media, it's unlikely that Google plays the same role that they used to. There's also no reason to think people are putting "blog" in their searches these days either. That would at best be a weak measure of blog readership.

I suspect that's a bit like concluding that the internet is dead because nobody says "surfing the web" anymore.

It's more like concluding that the internet is dead because nobody says "internet" anymore. Still, that trend for "blog" is probably more noise than signal considering the trend for "internet":

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=internet

That's a better example than mine. I was trying to think of something that also sounded silly, since "blog" has always been kind of a dumb-sounding word.

The graph for 'website' looks similar, so I guess anyone here who is a FE dev should look elsewhere.

https://imgur.com/a/ovi3wJ0

Even the word "google" is on a downslope from a high ~10 years ago.

That's the filter bubble effect that the OP alluded to.

You're "an economist, professor, and sometimes consultant with a side interest in computation and finding ways to be more productive. Always interested in learning new things.".

The mainstream public is watching the Tide Pod challenge on TikTok.

It doesn't seem plausible that the people watching the Tide Pod challenge today spent their free time reading blogs a decade ago.

It must be fascinating to find the people who are still watching the Tide Pod challenge today.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com