I read Hacker News everyday. I don't read every entry on the front page, but there is one topic I always read if it's on it, which is blogging.
Sometimes people blog about blogging, and I am always curious about what my fellow bloggers think. More specifically, I'm interested in the opinions of indie bloggers, who do not host their blog site on a publishing platform such as medium, substack, or tumblr, as I see us being a dying breed, and from it I arbitrarily find a sense of comradeship.
I'm relatively new to this community; the oldest iteration of this blog, migrated from tumblr and hosted on a top-level domain I bought, is from 2019. Since then I've introduced many redesign and rewrite to the site on an annual pace. Since then I've quit Facebook, Instagram, and recently Twitter, but I have not and do not plan to quit indie blogging.
Organized thinking
I do not promote my blog besides posting on my Bluesky account which has very few followers. I put no analytic code in my site, but if I had, I reckon more than ninety percent of the traffic would be myself. I'd love it if more people find pleasure in reading my posts, but I'm fine if there is no one too.
Because I believe there is value (as well as joy for me) in writing itself.
Below is my comment on the hacker news thread Why blog if nobody reads it?:
Writing is organized thinking, and organized thinking is valuable, now more than ever, in a world more and more people are delegating thinking to LLM everyday.
I once read from a comment in HN or a blog saying that, in the future writing will be like workout; in the past the daily physical labors forced people to build muscle on some aspects, but technology freed people from the labors as well as the muscles. Now if you want to build muscle you have to workout. Writing and organized thinking is going to be like that in the future: only those who wish to and take action to build organized thinking muscle will have them.
That is why to me writing itself is valuable, even if nobody reads it. Bonus points if somebody stumbles across my blog and it somehow builds my credibility.
Writing is my mental workout, and my blog site is the gym where I can workout whenever I like and however I like.
Digital gardening
I regularly as well as consciously look for other blogs for knowledge and inspiration. At first I was looking for visual design ideas to borrow, then I started to notice beauty in everyone's blog, and virtually visiting people's home itself becomes a pleasure.
Some people refer to their blog or personal site as a digital garden, in which they dump or grow ideas, mow and decorate for visitors or themselves. Most importantly, it is a personal space in the vast ocean of internet, in an age of platforms and AIs controlled by giant corporations. I strongly resonate with and adore this idea, as the internet is flooded with attention-grabbing tricks, a shelter made of indie blogs provides tranquility hard to find elsewhere.
I also love taking a glimpse of the blogger's personality through their sites, not only from words, but also from visual design. It really feels like visiting people's home, each with a different layout, furnitures and vibe.
Favorite blogs
- Henry From Online - Probably the most beautiful craft in the form of a webpage I've ever seen.
- Bartosz Ciechanowski - Such is leveraging technology on education.
- Tania Rascia - Love her words.
- Kagi small web - Collection of indie blogs rather than a single blog. When I need some stimulation drugs I take this one; it is the most organic one I know of.