Looks like a lot of people read first list, got triggered started writing comment and did not think about full scope of the text.
A long long time ago, before the Internet and the wide availability of electronic content, I used to read books and would even send physical letters.
Once I entered the corporate world and email, I had people telling me that I have to change my writing style. Pre-modern world and me included would use what I would call the "epistolary" style (long, detailed text). I was taught it by the literature I read or enforced in school by the style of writing I was expected to write. Essentially a bottom-up approach where you start with the premises and gradually build up your conclusion, presented at the end of the "novel".
Well problem's in the modern world nobody has the time to read your novel. I think reformulating "Nobody cares about your blog" to "Nobody has time to read your novel" would be closer to the truth.
It's not that people don't read novels anymore, it's that the quantity of content has increased 100x. Literally there's no time to go in depth over each and every wall of text you are confronted with.
So better adjust your writing style to modernity and use a top-down approach. Start with the conclusion and gradually build up the premises that led you there. Some people might read the whole content if it captures their interest but 99% will just read your summary and skim through the high level part of your content (assuming you stick to the top-down, so it gradually breaks into more and more complex parts).
I'd say there's nothing wrong with the approach and gotta keep up with the times we're living.
If people don't want to read everything you wrote, that's not inherently a problem.
The problem is that people want to comment on things they haven't read, and that's a problem the writer can't solve. Lazy, superficial commenters are a pox on all writing, and the internet has enabled them. It's a feature of modern times because the internet has given superficial, super lazy commenters a platform they never had before. Anyone in the world can sign up for a social media platform and start spewing text with practically no effort or ability.
Long form speakers often do so to obfuscate the content. It's a hiding place.
The only long form I read is fiction.
No, it's a criticism of people who make cheap shots in comments.
Again, if one doesn't have the patience for reading something, that's fine. But just walk away from the article, don't proceed to comment on something one doesn't have the patience to read. That's a disservice both to the author and to the people who did read the text.
"There's too much stuff to read on the internet" is a reason to walk away. It's not a good reason to stick around and comment.
Sure - times have changed - but not necessarily for the better.
And the "pro": you don't care what modern times are like. This is a blog. You get to pick who you write for. If time-short people who only want maximally-concise hand_holding business text are not your target, that's fine. You get to pick how you want to write. You can pick to ensure only better classes of readers.
Shameful.
In other words... nobody cares about your blog. ;-)
They just care about it for the wrong reasons.
Reasons that can be eliminated by adapting the structure of the content to a modern audience.
They may care about the subject matter of the blog post, but they don't care about the blog post, which is just an excuse for them to rant about the subject matter.
> Reasons that can be eliminated by adapting the structure of the content to a modern audience.
c/modern/lazy
This kind of framing/sweeping generalization doesn’t make sense to me. There will always be people who will rant for the sake of ranting, but this isn’t universal, nor should it be the base assumption about a reader/commentor.
> c/modern/lazy
This carries the problematic generalization further. The modern media environment has drastically impacted people’s attention span.
There are plenty of critical things to be said about the effects of this trend, but painting this as just a matter of laziness misses the bigger picture.
Especially important if you want to create content that encourages people to cultivate attention and stop consuming attention-destroying content.
Writing for a “modern” audience isn’t about catering to lazy people, but recognizing what people are up against in an information landscape that increasingly churns out bad information, making it necessary as a reader to assess the content quickly enough to know if it’s time to move on, because there isn’t enough time or attention in a day to give every post a full read.
I’m not saying lazy readers don’t exist, but that’s not why I think it’s useful to think about content structure.
Nonetheless, many good jokes have a grain of truth. Such commenters who rant for the sake of ranting obviously do exist, as you admit, and they are pervasive.
> making it necessary as a reader to assess the content quickly enough to know if it’s time to move on, because there isn’t enough time or attention in a day to give every post a full read.
It's interesting that you said "move on" rather than "comment", which is precisely the distinction I discussed in another comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36746673 Moving on is fine. The problem is staying and commenting without reading carefully.
But I still don’t understand how come people feel like it is worth to spend time writing comment on something they don’t have time to read through.
Personally, I read the whole thing, kinda scratched my head about the framing of it all, and came here to find what apparently seemed like agreement with my reaction.
It became more clear what the author was going for when he clarified, and in that light, the post makes more sense.
But I think someone lacking that context or familiarity with the author’s style and taking the content a bit too literally at first (like me) is another source of the critical commentary.
Things got a bit off track when this became a thread about people refusing to read, or lacking comprehension. From my perspective there are two ways to read it, and I think this pretty much guarantees some confusion.