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I always hear (usually from bloggers) "everybody needs a blog", or "everyone needs a Web page". Fair. But what everyone sort of "needs" is e-mail, which is why Gmail was such a smash hit in 2004 (and beyond). @yahoo.com and @aol.com e-mail accounts really were overzealous in their presence online (I mean, not a lot of alternatives at one point).
But before 2004, in 1998-ish, people wanted a different thing altogether. Not JUST a different platform (for search, Yahoo - for chat, AOL) but a different way of using the WWW that wasn't JUST that. Essentially, a self-made, en masse invention of Internet usage/culture.
Enter blogs
They're Webpages. But they "are" more than that. They're full-on diaries, or a novel, or a gossip column, a news beat, anything one wants it to be. Nary are the rules for running/owning one, just "etiquette".
But a blog isn't a protocol. And Yahoo/AOL are long gone (as are the Golden Years/Guilded Age of bloggos). But Mastodon, ActivityPub, and the Fediverse ARE open protocols. They may be picking up the slack where blogs fell short. Putting hard-wired "methods", formulation (::cough:: a protocol ::cough::) to an "indie" way of being online. The only etiquette one needs to be privvy to, and activity to be wary of, is centralization of any of that. A one-person Mastodon instance, a self-hosted site (like a blog) that is Federated, a small segment of friends/colleagues who communicate and collaborate on a more "intimate", close-knit level - that's more condusive to the "Egalitarian Medium" that one wanted (and had?) with the WWW prior to centralized services.
Up and down - Yahoo/AOL breeds blogs through user demand (rebellion?), Facebook/Twitter breeds ("better"?) micro blogs via Federated services.
That's how I see it
Nice post; to me, this is learning on a societal, global level. People are learning together that these silos are abusive and exploit their users' data. So they move on in search of a better option.
Ha, see? I was right about the first anecdote!
(from Julia Evans)
"myth: everyone should blog
I sometimes see advice to the effect of “blogging is great! public speaking is great! everyone should do it! build your Personal Brand!“.
Blogging isn’t for everyone. Tons of amazing developers don’t have blogs or personal websites at all. I write because it’s fun for me and it helps me organize my thoughts."
(https://jvns.ca/blog/2023/06/05/some-blogging-myths/)
...
...so why share this? idk. Doesn't matter (to me, blogs mean a lot to many people).
Fun(?)