A blog is a place to share things you care about with others. It's a place on the internet that you own. You choose the topic and the format, and no one can stop you. Above all, it's accessible to everyone, not just those on a specific platform.
I've had a blog for almost 20 years. Nowadays, it's the best record I have of what I'm interested in and working on. It has recipes I send to my friends, context for strangers. It's a beacon that attracts similar people, a call for them to reach out.
And it works! I get emails about my posts. I helped people travel along the same routes, and fixed people's technical issues.
Another blog of mine turned into a lifestyle business. I have met countless friends and two lovers through it.
So yeah, do your thing, put it online. Start simple, migrate as needed. I love static sites because they're low maintenance. Hugo and a theme would be good.
Learning to hit publish even when you're full of doubt is the cure for self-doubt. Stop letting doubt rule your life and do the things you want to do!
> Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
My recommendation, short posts at least once a week revolving around a single topic
> If you were starting today, what would you do differently?
I would not have built my own blog from scratch, I would just use one of the many fine options out there. Be realistic, you likely will not get many readers, at least not for a while. The value of blogging is what you learn about writing and the topic you write about it.
I have a personal technical blog. I decided a long time ago I don’t care if anyone reads it. My purpose for writing is an educational exercise for myself. Publishing on the web is kind of just a forcing function for quality.
Quite the opposite - most people who should write ask whether or not they should. My source on that is my foray into the publishing industry. It’s common amongst good writers.
Making money? Geez, you’re an optimist and that’s a good thing. I wish I had made money. My foray into publishing was the most expensive career I have ever had.
As a bit of personal advice from a former blogger who had a million+ visitors per year, it's not about anything except your readers and the community you build. AI might have facts on everything, but AI content will not build a community and enrich the people's lives who engage with the site.
Absolutely worth it, maybe more than ever. AI floods the zone with generic takes - having a personal blog with actual POV cuts through that.
The economics changed though. You're not writing for SEO anymore (AI won), you're writing for humans who specifically want non-generic thinking. Smaller audience, but they'll actually care.
This is actually why I started curating AI discussions from HN - cut through the generic AI content with actual substantive threads: https://hackernewsai.com
Yes, if you treat it as an instrument, not an audience product.
The main value of a personal blog was never distribution. It’s externalized thinking. Writing forces you to make assumptions explicit, notice gaps, and resolve contradictions. That doesn’t get replaced by AI — if anything, AI makes undisciplined thinking easier to hide.
The posts that tend to compound aren’t “explainers.” They’re records of decisions, trade-offs, failures, and mental models you’ve actually tested. That’s where perspective comes from, and that’s the part AI can’t synthesize for you.
If starting today, I’d optimize for low friction and long half-life: short notes, irregular cadence, one theme you’re actively working on. Treat it as a public lab notebook. If it’s useful to your future self, it will eventually be useful to someone else.
It's worth being very clear about the reasons for it. You say you're not trying to build a media business, and want to build a "public notebook", but you imply you're looking for career/networking opportunities. You're also not clear if the "learning" is for you as the author, or for the reader.
If you want to have your content discovered online, I'd say you might be in for some trouble, although I don't think AI is the cause, only an accelerator on that. Blogs for readers learning are probably in decline, you're unlikely to get any outreach based on your posts for networking.
However if, like me, the writing process is the point – you're trying to clarify your thoughts, learn something new yourself, or have a document you can share with colleagues when they ask you to explain your opinions, I think blogging is valuable. While you won't get direct outreach, you can share it on your CV or send it to recruiters and you might get noticed when applying for jobs.
My take as someone who mostly does it "for fun": I only started blogging as a way to have writings online outside of social platforms.
>What made it worth it for you?
If by "worth it" you mean a measurable ROI, then nothing. If we expand it to more abstract concepts, then spinning up my own HUGO theme and writing about what I like is fun, so self actualization is what I get from it.
>What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?
None, probably less than 100 people have read it, I only share it in friend groups, but it feels nice when those friends read it and give me feedback.
>Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
What do you mean by "lowers the bar"? The length of my posts can be pretty variable, cadence is "whenever" and the blog can go months without an update, and themes are also pretty varied, sometimes I talk about some piece of fiction I like, other times it gets more technical, and sometimes too I just recount the process of making something and the insights it gave me.
>If you were starting today, what would you do differently?
There's not much to change when blogging has not changed my life in any significant regard, I'm just glad I started.
- Like you mentioned, it helps me learn more about a topic/explore it more deeply, I usually begin with an intuition and then explore outwards.
- Folks positively mention my articles - both current connections and new connections.
- They sometimes spark interesting discussion which helps refine my knowledge further.
> What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?
- Hard to say, I don't have a high signal here. Usually just having some content for people to skim was enough, but folks would tend to mention nearly random articles depending on their interests.
> Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
- I'm not a great blogger in that I have no established cadence. I didn't want pressure to deliver crap (biweekly), nor did I want necessarily to put posts on too high of a pedestal (monthly+).
> If you were starting today, what would you do differently?
- Highly recommend going with simple tech. A static site based on Markdown does wonders. Offload discussion threads to sites like HN or reddit - the comment section of your links.
AI will scrape your blog and your personal philosophy will eventually become a part of collective Human Intelligence. That's a pretty good reason to blog imo.
That reminds me of a gimmick a while ago where GitHub would collect your repositories into an Arctic Code Vault. That was IMO a bit of an incentive for me to upload random bits of git repositories I have on my PC just so that I can say my code will last 1,000 years somewhere in the arctic.
* What made it worth it was just the act of blogging itself. For me writing down what I've learned is a great way to consolidate that knowledge for myself. And making it public also inspires me to spend a bit more time thinking about it and double-checking some things before putting it out there. Sometimes I get a nice comment on a years-old blog post and that's also rewarding. Additionally, sometimes I search for something and have my own years-old blog post come up, reminding me that I already solved that thing before and can reuse the solution.
* All posts have worked to consolidate knowledge and help me think.
* Since you're just trying to build a public notebook, what are you trying to lower the bar to? Your own writing motivation or something else? If the former, just write to the length/cadence/themes you're interested in and don't write what you're not interested in.
* Maybe I'd go back and tell pretty-much-teenage-me to stop being so cringe because this stuff will still be there 20 years later.
If anything, it's maybe even more worth doing this in the age of LLMs since "nobody is going to read this" is probably no longer true!
LLMs are likely more attentive readers than most human beings and in a way a blog might achieve even greater reach by virtue of being read by an LLM and incorporated into its "understanding of the world." (Or whatever is the right metaphor.)
As an open source dev, in principle I like the idea that my code is used to train models that help produce other code. The problem is license enforcement.
If you have a topic to write, why let AI hold you back? If you worry about mistakes or AI writing better, use it to proofread and get suggestions?
My personal blocker is that I have a bunch of unrelated hobby topics and don't want to maintain multiple blogs. Someone interested in landscaping and woodwork might not be interested in programming..
I've really enjoyed writing recurring posts. For example, each December, I write up lists of the most interesting books and papers I've read during the year. These usually generate a decent amount of interest and are something I look forward to writing each year.
> If you were starting today, what would you do differently?
I wish I would have started earlier. Writing a blog has kept my writing skills sharp.
I started blog simply to have a place to express myself; my only reader is probably myself.
I write whatever comes to mind, organize my travel photos, record my daily step count, and manage my bookmarks.
if you don't expect anyone to read it from the start, then you won't be disappointed, and you won't have to doubt whether what you've written is meaningful or mature enough, or whether it's embarrassing to show your imperfect self.
It won't be, because I assume from the beginning that no one will read it. But I still want to write, because as a freelancer who works from home all year round, I say a few words a day. I need a place to express myself, a channel for my emotions.
Personally I wouldn't let AI influence this decision at all.
Today's AI is built on human-made content, and if we want "more" AI then we will need more human-made stuff. So it's a moot point. Unless you are OK with AI causing a plateau in human progress, don't let it get in the way of you (a human) from making progress.
That said, I cannot really comment on your first or third blockers. I have the exact same problems.
My original reason for blogging was because I wanted an easy way to link people solutions I'd found for various programmer problems. Posts don't 'work'. You have to write to write. For a long time my main motivation to blog was blowing off steam from work related frustrations.
I started a niche golf blog to support my golf wiki. It write about all the parts of golf and the culture I think are weird or incorrectly thought about. It’s very rewarding, I only have about 300 readers, but really only write because I have very niche views on the topic and don’t think anyone is out there thinking about golf like I do.
I heard from a senior programmer I once worked with that a couple of his post was copied almost 1-to-1 as part of a paid course. Eventually he lost interest in sharing technical writeups.
If you don't mind it, go for it.
---
I am curious on how people can output so much content, did they work on their blog while at the office or during working hours for remote work?
Opportunities. You don't need many readers, you just need the right readers. I'm a big believer in making your own luck - putting things in place that make luck more likely to strike. Having a collection of writing online that people might stumble onto is very effective way of doing that.
> What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?
I've written a bunch about this in the past. TLDR version:
- Stuff I've learned: TIL style posts that describe something I've learned recently
- Stuff I've found: links to things that are useful, with an explanation of why they are useful
- Stuff I've built: descriptions of projects I've completed
> Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
TILs are an incredibly liberating format. You don't need to be describing something that's never been written about before - just something that's new to you today.
> If you were starting today, what would you do differently
I'd use static publishing on GitHub Pages on myname.github.io so I don't even need to run any web hosting or buy a domain name.
Yeah that's definitely a useful feature of Substack.
I'm the wrong person to ask about discoverability because I've been blogging for 22 years and I've accumulated 100,000+ followers on Twitter, 39,000 on Bluesky etc.
It's worth offering an email subscribe mechanism. I didn't do that for the first ~20 years - I offered just an RSS feed - but when I added the Substack newsletter option it become clear I should have been gathering email addresses from a lot earlier on!
Despite having a substantial audience visiting my site now I still think the best way to get traffic to an article is to tell people about it elsewhere. I follow the POSSE principle: publish on own site, syndicate elsewhere: https://indieweb.org/POSSE
Honestly though quality is much more important than quantity. Join communities of like-minded individuals and make sure that a small number of engaged people get to see your stuff. Opportunities from that are likely to be more valuable than if you have a much larger audience who aren't as closely aligned with what you're publishing.
This one is demonstrably false. Your personal written style is what's important. Also, you have hands-on experience, which is also demonstrably more than any "AI" has. I urge you to ignore this kind of doubt or consideration.
- What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?
For learning, "book report" type posts, just to solidify what I've read in my mind, maybe drive a little experimentation to ensure I've concluded correctly. I've decided not to collect any metrics so that I don't follow from behind, so that I don't end up doing clickbait. Career and network opportunities have not arisen from my blog.
My "public notebook" posts get more traffic, and I've referred back to them, but for me, these are mostly Linux sysadmin topics. I'd wager these are most valuable to people that find them for very specific problems, like seeing LLDP info from inside a WiFi access point or fixing GRUB problems on particular hardware.
- Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
I have not discovered anything for this, alas. I use Hugo, I have a couple of little shell scripts to do monthly counts of finished vs draft articles. I try to stay at or above 5 posts a month. I'm not sure that helps lower the bar, which I interpret as "provide motivation to post".
What would I do differently? Start a blog years before I actually did so.
I'm happy to correspond, my email is in my HN profile.
I second your comment about referring back to sysadmin posts. I do this all the time! Sometimes I even find my own old blogposts in Google.
And I still get a steady trickle of grateful comments/emails in response to a tossed-off post about getting Linux scanner drivers working, many of which are genuinely moving to read.
Hey, just wanted to let you know that your honeypot data for PHP-based attacks ended up factoring in charges being dropped in two criminal cases where prosecution attempted to run with a harebrained and ludicrous theory that basically centered around some... mythical idea of how these attacks happen and how specific they can be. The criminal justice system is where lurid fantasies of how tech works end up putting people in prison for sometimes years and budget concerns meant that attorneys filled parking meters every 4 hours and we had two full time investigators in an office of 40, most with a 80-120 caseload (rolling basis). Sometimes the data one puts online can really make an impact that my guess is that it was entirely unexpected and for two people in their 20s with young kids (separate cases, in fact, although not too far apart), it really reclaimed a good chunk of their lives. Thank you for that, and I hope others would do the same, because one never knows when it'll come in handy. So many products sold to LE are basically snake oil and without data and facts, the threat is incredibly coercive. Any leverage for defense helps balancing the playing field and frankly, nobody deserves to be taken to trial based on utter BS that has merit merely because it matches the equally unfounded anxieties of people, however unsubstantiated.Thanks again!
Human always have thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Writing them down is already a cool thing. If AI has those too, then it should start its own blog :)
Too many to list such as jobs, recognition in the community, but the best ones are some sort of a personal satisfaction without the need to say anything aloud. The other two things I will always remember are (i) my cousin once accompanied me to a conference where I spoke, and after seeing the people lined/gathered around to talk, “What the heck are you, what do you do!” and (ii) recently, my daughter, “Papa, I searched you on Google and you are kinda Internet-famous, you are everything if I search your name.”
> What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?
Two ways to look at it, (i) I don't care, I will just write or (ii) focus on a topic/community/vertical and keep writing about it, even if someone has written about it, write your own opinion.
Watch for topic upticks in that vertical/interest and write about it, even if it means adding something to the ones that is already written. @simonw does it best https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/22/link-blog/
> Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
Make it open-ended. When you want and inspired, keep writing perhaps a long-form article or just stay short like @kepano https://stephango.com/style
> If you were starting today, what would you do differently?
Stay simple, minimal, comments optional/avoid. Separate content from your styles. Keep all of your content which you can just walk-out from a platform/service/framework if need be. https://brajeshwar.com/2021/brajeshwar.com-2021/
I started blogging long before AI became mainstream, but I'd say: totally worth it.
Re blockers:
- Novelty: I routinely search for very niche, "boring" information, and am disappointed by how few in-depth blogposts I find.
- “AI can explain most topics better than I can”. I doubt it! I rarely find current AI as valuable as a good blog post. It tends to be shallow and regress to the mean, and b/c of hallucinations it's untrustworthy, so a lot of time is wasted fact-checking.
- Fear of shipping: if it isn't relevant, nobody will read it (unless you're already famous)
Re questions:
- What made it worth it for you?
Clarifying my thoughts, connecting with strangers who think about the same things, the leverage "having a platform" produces (it opens a lot of doors), and gaining prestige in certain niches.
- What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?
I don't think this is simple to answer until the heat death of the universe. Traffic stats is a very poor estimator of value delivered. Which posts I am most proud of, and how much traffic they got, are weakly correlated.
- Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
Things that you are obsessed with. It's a tonne of work writing a good post, and sometimes you publish it and nobody cares, so it has to be intrinsically rewarding.
- If you were starting today, what would you do differently?
I don't know! Probably put less effort into trying to appear intelligent/impressive, which rarely works anyway.
These are my off-the-top thoughts based on over a decade of blogging.
I may be in the minority, perhaps even a minority of one, but I disagree that publishing a blog is worthwhile even if nobody reads it. I honestly don't understand the point. Write a diary for yourself if you want, fine, but what exactly are you gaining by putting it out there? It's even worse if you have to force yourself to do it, which appears to be the case here. Force yourself to exercise every day, because that's good for your physical health, but is blogging good for your health?
Writing in public is performance art. Some people are naturally performance artists and need to perform to satisfy some internal urge. If you're not one of them, don't let anyone else convince you that you need to be one. It's ok to not blog. The idea that everyone should have a blog is completely unjustified.
I read another comment that said you should write blog posts at least once a week. That sounds a lot like a job. An unpaid job at that. Forget this silly peer pressure.
You definitely are in the minority - of minus one. :)
Between diary and blog, a blog is the better option, because it has all the advantages of a diary, but also the potential upside of publicity (if you want it).
How much publicity have you received? Be careful what you wish for. It's crucial to note that publicity brings a number of potential downsides. For example, close to home, Hacker News commenters will totally trash you, whether you deserve it or not.
Writing is difficult and like all art forms, it’s subject to impostor syndrome. Blogging is the best way I have found to remind yourself that you’re not an impostor. And the more experience you get proving you’re not an impostor, the easier impostor syndrome is to deal with.
Realistically if you start now, you’re years away from a devoted readership and that’s fine. You’ll gain from publishing and if you’re diligent, you’ll gain from watching your writing improve.
For me, I like writing and can’t get paid enough in publishing or as a writer to do it professionally. So it’s worth it for me because I have a lot of fun writing. I spent a good part of my life hunting for eyeballs and now I’m content just writing whether anyone reads it or not.
I’m not sure that I’d recommend any particular theme, cadence or style for a new blogger. And I definitely wouldn’t recommend a style of post. Rather those sorts of things will come organically as you get used to writing and start building a community. When you’re getting started, just focus on writing, trying to build habits and learning how to edit yourself. Most writers will struggle with one of the three on their way to developing a voice so if you’re going through hell you’re likely on the right path.
If I were starting today, I’d focus less on hunting eyeballs and more on writing for the joy of it. I’d also spend a lot more time writing about subjects that I’m not interested in because that’s really good practice. And finally, I wouldn’t worry so much about writer’s block - it happens, it sucks but it goes away when you stop worrying about it.
On the subject of writer’s block, if it’s something you struggle with I have a great exercise for you. When you’re stuck, interview yourself about the finished piece you’re stuck on. Pretend it’s done and interview yourself. I would have started doing that twenty five years ago and I’d be a far better writer now because of it.
Finally, keep everything you write and read it regularly but there’s nothing wrong with pruning your blog regularly. If things you wrote two years ago are embarrassing today that means you’re a better writer. Go with that.
It's about writing. It's about finishing something and getting it out there. The intellectual stimulation of the act of writing is the whole point. Write into the void, even. But write.
Given the way you're framing this no, it's not worth it for you to blog. Using words like "shipping","low-signal", "networking". And odd ideas like blog posts having to "work" and provide some tangible gain. These are for-profit concepts so I assume you want to do this to make money or meet people to allow you to make money.
There is no money in blogs if there ever was. The money moved away to social media a long time ago. Leave the blogs to human people talking to each other and showing off their gardens and pets and hobbies.
I have a blog, hardly anyone reads it, or hardly anyone did back when it was on wordpress and I got stats for that kind of thing; now it's on github and doesn't track anything, I have no idea. Back when I did know, I found that linking to it from here got me 30-100 extra hits, compared to the 1-3 any normal post would get.
> •“Nobody needs this” / “It’s not original” […] •What made it worth it for you?
I would still recommend it: it does save me time having to explain myself in detail, as I can just post a link to whichever blog post is the essay about whatever.
> •“AI can explain most topics better than I can”
AI can be more persuasive than most humans, but it doesn't make it more correct, the lack of correctness is a common criticism of AI slop by just about everyone.
> •A bit of fear: shipping something that feels naive or low-signal
Allow yourself to be naïve, we're all that at some point. Here's one of mine, where in 2018 I look back on predictions made in 2012. Some held up well, some, it turned out, were physically impossible: https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2018/07/17-16.09.05.html
Naïve errors: Optical-wavelength metamaterial cloaking, fabric or otherwise, is not possible, the bandwidth is too narrow; Robot cars may be technically available in many countries, but they're sure not "rapidly displacing human drivers because they are much safer and therefore cheaper to insure".
Close but no cigar: Nameplate solar power didn't reach par with global electricity use in 2024, but it did get to 1865 TW, which would have been 82% of global electricity use at the time I made the prediction. Actual global electricity use is 50% higher today than in 2012.
I've thought like this for a while, even before AI. I figure that if I do write, it will either be ripped off, outdone by a person, or suspected of having been ripped off from somewhere. There are also topics I would not feel comfortable blogging about because they are not PC. I think it is worth developing the skill of writing however. I haven't found a real way to solve these issues 100%, but it occurred to me that the odds of me having these problems would be lower if I paywalled my stuff or at least required registration for access. Free registration would not work if everyone did it the same way, but perhaps there is a way to have your own system that no crawler would bother trying to interface with.
Writing isn't about the produced artifact, it's about the process of taking abstract thought patterns and translating them into written text. In the same way that art isn't about coloured pixels on a screen or paint on a canvas. In our new world of AI slop, human writing is becoming more important, not less important.
> “Nobody needs this” / “It’s not original”
We need it more than ever. Who cares if it's not original, AI slop isn't original either.
> “AI can explain most topics better than I can”
Don't write tutorials.
> A bit of fear: shipping something that feels naive or low-signal
A blog is a place to share things you care about with others. It's a place on the internet that you own. You choose the topic and the format, and no one can stop you. Above all, it's accessible to everyone, not just those on a specific platform.
I've had a blog for almost 20 years. Nowadays, it's the best record I have of what I'm interested in and working on. It has recipes I send to my friends, context for strangers. It's a beacon that attracts similar people, a call for them to reach out.
And it works! I get emails about my posts. I helped people travel along the same routes, and fixed people's technical issues.
Another blog of mine turned into a lifestyle business. I have met countless friends and two lovers through it.
So yeah, do your thing, put it online. Start simple, migrate as needed. I love static sites because they're low maintenance. Hugo and a theme would be good.
> no one can stop you
(offer not valid in UK)
> What made it worth it for you?
Learning to hit publish even when you're full of doubt is the cure for self-doubt. Stop letting doubt rule your life and do the things you want to do!
> Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
My recommendation, short posts at least once a week revolving around a single topic
> If you were starting today, what would you do differently?
I would not have built my own blog from scratch, I would just use one of the many fine options out there. Be realistic, you likely will not get many readers, at least not for a while. The value of blogging is what you learn about writing and the topic you write about it.
I have a personal technical blog. I decided a long time ago I don’t care if anyone reads it. My purpose for writing is an educational exercise for myself. Publishing on the web is kind of just a forcing function for quality.
If you don’t mind asking, hey long have you been doing it and How much traffic are you getting?
Maybe six years or so? And around 100 hits per day, mostly on the same few articles.
Not the GP but I've been doing it for 16 years and I don't know or care how much traffic I'm getting. :)
I personally made up quite a bit of that traffic, thanks for getting me through grad school :)
If you have to ask, then the answer is most likely no.
The most interesting blogs I read are the people that don't really care and are just creating things they find interesting.
Indeed. It's like starting a business. You probably shouldn't do it, but some people have to.
Quite the opposite - most people who should write ask whether or not they should. My source on that is my foray into the publishing industry. It’s common amongst good writers.
I don't think it's useful to compare writing a book for money with writing a blog for no money.
Making money? Geez, you’re an optimist and that’s a good thing. I wish I had made money. My foray into publishing was the most expensive career I have ever had.
> Making money? Geez, you’re an optimist and that’s a good thing.
I'm not. I'm well aware of the bleak prospects. But I'm not the one who told people that they should try to publish.
As a bit of personal advice from a former blogger who had a million+ visitors per year, it's not about anything except your readers and the community you build. AI might have facts on everything, but AI content will not build a community and enrich the people's lives who engage with the site.
When everything else is a computer, be a human.
Absolutely worth it, maybe more than ever. AI floods the zone with generic takes - having a personal blog with actual POV cuts through that.
The economics changed though. You're not writing for SEO anymore (AI won), you're writing for humans who specifically want non-generic thinking. Smaller audience, but they'll actually care.
This is actually why I started curating AI discussions from HN - cut through the generic AI content with actual substantive threads: https://hackernewsai.com
Yes, if you treat it as an instrument, not an audience product.
The main value of a personal blog was never distribution. It’s externalized thinking. Writing forces you to make assumptions explicit, notice gaps, and resolve contradictions. That doesn’t get replaced by AI — if anything, AI makes undisciplined thinking easier to hide.
The posts that tend to compound aren’t “explainers.” They’re records of decisions, trade-offs, failures, and mental models you’ve actually tested. That’s where perspective comes from, and that’s the part AI can’t synthesize for you.
If starting today, I’d optimize for low friction and long half-life: short notes, irregular cadence, one theme you’re actively working on. Treat it as a public lab notebook. If it’s useful to your future self, it will eventually be useful to someone else.
It's worth being very clear about the reasons for it. You say you're not trying to build a media business, and want to build a "public notebook", but you imply you're looking for career/networking opportunities. You're also not clear if the "learning" is for you as the author, or for the reader.
If you want to have your content discovered online, I'd say you might be in for some trouble, although I don't think AI is the cause, only an accelerator on that. Blogs for readers learning are probably in decline, you're unlikely to get any outreach based on your posts for networking.
However if, like me, the writing process is the point – you're trying to clarify your thoughts, learn something new yourself, or have a document you can share with colleagues when they ask you to explain your opinions, I think blogging is valuable. While you won't get direct outreach, you can share it on your CV or send it to recruiters and you might get noticed when applying for jobs.
My take as someone who mostly does it "for fun": I only started blogging as a way to have writings online outside of social platforms.
>What made it worth it for you?
If by "worth it" you mean a measurable ROI, then nothing. If we expand it to more abstract concepts, then spinning up my own HUGO theme and writing about what I like is fun, so self actualization is what I get from it.
>What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?
None, probably less than 100 people have read it, I only share it in friend groups, but it feels nice when those friends read it and give me feedback.
>Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
What do you mean by "lowers the bar"? The length of my posts can be pretty variable, cadence is "whenever" and the blog can go months without an update, and themes are also pretty varied, sometimes I talk about some piece of fiction I like, other times it gets more technical, and sometimes too I just recount the process of making something and the insights it gave me.
>If you were starting today, what would you do differently?
There's not much to change when blogging has not changed my life in any significant regard, I'm just glad I started.
> What made it worth it for you?
- Like you mentioned, it helps me learn more about a topic/explore it more deeply, I usually begin with an intuition and then explore outwards.
- Folks positively mention my articles - both current connections and new connections.
- They sometimes spark interesting discussion which helps refine my knowledge further.
> What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?
- Hard to say, I don't have a high signal here. Usually just having some content for people to skim was enough, but folks would tend to mention nearly random articles depending on their interests.
> Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
- I'm not a great blogger in that I have no established cadence. I didn't want pressure to deliver crap (biweekly), nor did I want necessarily to put posts on too high of a pedestal (monthly+).
> If you were starting today, what would you do differently?
- Highly recommend going with simple tech. A static site based on Markdown does wonders. Offload discussion threads to sites like HN or reddit - the comment section of your links.
AI doesn't change anything. If it was worth doing it is still worth doing.
AI will scrape your blog and your personal philosophy will eventually become a part of collective Human Intelligence. That's a pretty good reason to blog imo.
That reminds me of a gimmick a while ago where GitHub would collect your repositories into an Arctic Code Vault. That was IMO a bit of an incentive for me to upload random bits of git repositories I have on my PC just so that I can say my code will last 1,000 years somewhere in the arctic.
* What made it worth it was just the act of blogging itself. For me writing down what I've learned is a great way to consolidate that knowledge for myself. And making it public also inspires me to spend a bit more time thinking about it and double-checking some things before putting it out there. Sometimes I get a nice comment on a years-old blog post and that's also rewarding. Additionally, sometimes I search for something and have my own years-old blog post come up, reminding me that I already solved that thing before and can reuse the solution.
* All posts have worked to consolidate knowledge and help me think.
* Since you're just trying to build a public notebook, what are you trying to lower the bar to? Your own writing motivation or something else? If the former, just write to the length/cadence/themes you're interested in and don't write what you're not interested in.
* Maybe I'd go back and tell pretty-much-teenage-me to stop being so cringe because this stuff will still be there 20 years later.
If anything, it's maybe even more worth doing this in the age of LLMs since "nobody is going to read this" is probably no longer true!
LLMs are likely more attentive readers than most human beings and in a way a blog might achieve even greater reach by virtue of being read by an LLM and incorporated into its "understanding of the world." (Or whatever is the right metaphor.)
Feed the plagiarism machine, make the tech billionaires richer
Fortunately a linkedin user has found a defense mechanism
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ken-cheng-991849b6_ai-will-ne...
As an open source dev, in principle I like the idea that my code is used to train models that help produce other code. The problem is license enforcement.
I've been writing on my blog for 9 years. Still feel the same blockers you do on every new post.
For me, the main motivation is that I enjoy reading other people's blogs, and hopefully my posts give someone ekse a similar enjoyment
I had a few attempts to lower the bar (tags for low effort, short and shitpost so far), but it feels like a crutch and hasn't worked long term for me.
You have to realize ai is way more trash than you actually give it credit for.
Also with the shoveling of it down the people's throats, more people want authentic human experiences.
If you have a topic to write, why let AI hold you back? If you worry about mistakes or AI writing better, use it to proofread and get suggestions?
My personal blocker is that I have a bunch of unrelated hobby topics and don't want to maintain multiple blogs. Someone interested in landscaping and woodwork might not be interested in programming..
Write.
Argue in the comments.
Write more, with your improved ideas. Get better at arguing.
Get better at understanding arguments.
Get better at understanding generally.
Essentially: Exercise your brain, and use that to make yourself a better person.
> Any practical format that lowers the bar?
I've really enjoyed writing recurring posts. For example, each December, I write up lists of the most interesting books and papers I've read during the year. These usually generate a decent amount of interest and are something I look forward to writing each year.
> If you were starting today, what would you do differently?
I wish I would have started earlier. Writing a blog has kept my writing skills sharp.
I started blog simply to have a place to express myself; my only reader is probably myself.
I write whatever comes to mind, organize my travel photos, record my daily step count, and manage my bookmarks.
if you don't expect anyone to read it from the start, then you won't be disappointed, and you won't have to doubt whether what you've written is meaningful or mature enough, or whether it's embarrassing to show your imperfect self.
It won't be, because I assume from the beginning that no one will read it. But I still want to write, because as a freelancer who works from home all year round, I say a few words a day. I need a place to express myself, a channel for my emotions.
In the first place, write for yourself.
I don’t do it often anymore (lack of time) but used to be a somewhat active blogger. It helped with my own understanding of the topics I wrote about.
Personally I wouldn't let AI influence this decision at all.
Today's AI is built on human-made content, and if we want "more" AI then we will need more human-made stuff. So it's a moot point. Unless you are OK with AI causing a plateau in human progress, don't let it get in the way of you (a human) from making progress.
That said, I cannot really comment on your first or third blockers. I have the exact same problems.
My original reason for blogging was because I wanted an easy way to link people solutions I'd found for various programmer problems. Posts don't 'work'. You have to write to write. For a long time my main motivation to blog was blowing off steam from work related frustrations.
I started a niche golf blog to support my golf wiki. It write about all the parts of golf and the culture I think are weird or incorrectly thought about. It’s very rewarding, I only have about 300 readers, but really only write because I have very niche views on the topic and don’t think anyone is out there thinking about golf like I do.
I heard from a senior programmer I once worked with that a couple of his post was copied almost 1-to-1 as part of a paid course. Eventually he lost interest in sharing technical writeups.
If you don't mind it, go for it.
---
I am curious on how people can output so much content, did they work on their blog while at the office or during working hours for remote work?
You'll be original and put your original spin to it. It's worth it.
Writing is cathartic, but you already know this.
I have a small personal blog myself.
> What made it worth it for you?
Opportunities. You don't need many readers, you just need the right readers. I'm a big believer in making your own luck - putting things in place that make luck more likely to strike. Having a collection of writing online that people might stumble onto is very effective way of doing that.
> What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?
I've written a bunch about this in the past. TLDR version:
- Stuff I've learned: TIL style posts that describe something I've learned recently
- Stuff I've found: links to things that are useful, with an explanation of why they are useful
- Stuff I've built: descriptions of projects I've completed
What to blog about: https://simonwillison.net/2022/Nov/6/what-to-blog-about/
My approach to running a link blog: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/22/link-blog/
> Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
TILs are an incredibly liberating format. You don't need to be describing something that's never been written about before - just something that's new to you today.
> If you were starting today, what would you do differently
I'd use static publishing on GitHub Pages on myname.github.io so I don't even need to run any web hosting or buy a domain name.
The benefit of a blogging platform like Substack and the like, is that it can sometimes make it easier for people to find your writing.
How do you “solve” the discoverability problem? Asking you because I know your blog has become very popular!
Yeah that's definitely a useful feature of Substack.
I'm the wrong person to ask about discoverability because I've been blogging for 22 years and I've accumulated 100,000+ followers on Twitter, 39,000 on Bluesky etc.
It's worth offering an email subscribe mechanism. I didn't do that for the first ~20 years - I offered just an RSS feed - but when I added the Substack newsletter option it become clear I should have been gathering email addresses from a lot earlier on!
Despite having a substantial audience visiting my site now I still think the best way to get traffic to an article is to tell people about it elsewhere. I follow the POSSE principle: publish on own site, syndicate elsewhere: https://indieweb.org/POSSE
Honestly though quality is much more important than quantity. Join communities of like-minded individuals and make sure that a small number of engaged people get to see your stuff. Opportunities from that are likely to be more valuable than if you have a much larger audience who aren't as closely aligned with what you're publishing.
AI can explain most topics better than I can
This one is demonstrably false. Your personal written style is what's important. Also, you have hands-on experience, which is also demonstrably more than any "AI" has. I urge you to ignore this kind of doubt or consideration.
- What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?
For learning, "book report" type posts, just to solidify what I've read in my mind, maybe drive a little experimentation to ensure I've concluded correctly. I've decided not to collect any metrics so that I don't follow from behind, so that I don't end up doing clickbait. Career and network opportunities have not arisen from my blog.
My "public notebook" posts get more traffic, and I've referred back to them, but for me, these are mostly Linux sysadmin topics. I'd wager these are most valuable to people that find them for very specific problems, like seeing LLDP info from inside a WiFi access point or fixing GRUB problems on particular hardware.
- Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
I have not discovered anything for this, alas. I use Hugo, I have a couple of little shell scripts to do monthly counts of finished vs draft articles. I try to stay at or above 5 posts a month. I'm not sure that helps lower the bar, which I interpret as "provide motivation to post".
What would I do differently? Start a blog years before I actually did so.
I'm happy to correspond, my email is in my HN profile.
I second your comment about referring back to sysadmin posts. I do this all the time! Sometimes I even find my own old blogposts in Google.
And I still get a steady trickle of grateful comments/emails in response to a tossed-off post about getting Linux scanner drivers working, many of which are genuinely moving to read.
Hey, just wanted to let you know that your honeypot data for PHP-based attacks ended up factoring in charges being dropped in two criminal cases where prosecution attempted to run with a harebrained and ludicrous theory that basically centered around some... mythical idea of how these attacks happen and how specific they can be. The criminal justice system is where lurid fantasies of how tech works end up putting people in prison for sometimes years and budget concerns meant that attorneys filled parking meters every 4 hours and we had two full time investigators in an office of 40, most with a 80-120 caseload (rolling basis). Sometimes the data one puts online can really make an impact that my guess is that it was entirely unexpected and for two people in their 20s with young kids (separate cases, in fact, although not too far apart), it really reclaimed a good chunk of their lives. Thank you for that, and I hope others would do the same, because one never knows when it'll come in handy. So many products sold to LE are basically snake oil and without data and facts, the threat is incredibly coercive. Any leverage for defense helps balancing the playing field and frankly, nobody deserves to be taken to trial based on utter BS that has merit merely because it matches the equally unfounded anxieties of people, however unsubstantiated.Thanks again!
Human always have thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Writing them down is already a cool thing. If AI has those too, then it should start its own blog :)
> What made it worth it for you?
Too many to list such as jobs, recognition in the community, but the best ones are some sort of a personal satisfaction without the need to say anything aloud. The other two things I will always remember are (i) my cousin once accompanied me to a conference where I spoke, and after seeing the people lined/gathered around to talk, “What the heck are you, what do you do!” and (ii) recently, my daughter, “Papa, I searched you on Google and you are kinda Internet-famous, you are everything if I search your name.”
> What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?
Two ways to look at it, (i) I don't care, I will just write or (ii) focus on a topic/community/vertical and keep writing about it, even if someone has written about it, write your own opinion. Watch for topic upticks in that vertical/interest and write about it, even if it means adding something to the ones that is already written. @simonw does it best https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/22/link-blog/
> Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
Make it open-ended. When you want and inspired, keep writing perhaps a long-form article or just stay short like @kepano https://stephango.com/style
> If you were starting today, what would you do differently?
Stay simple, minimal, comments optional/avoid. Separate content from your styles. Keep all of your content which you can just walk-out from a platform/service/framework if need be. https://brajeshwar.com/2021/brajeshwar.com-2021/
Do it, leave your mark in this world.
I’m starting a personal one because I’d like to improve my understanding and articulation of a few things.
Some insights and related discussions this year:
It’s still worth blogging in the age of AI
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43166761
Blogging in 2025: Screaming into the Void
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46156379
Write the post you wish you'd found
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43154666
Ask HN: Is maintaining a personal blog still worth it?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42685534
I'd say more than ever before
I started blogging long before AI became mainstream, but I'd say: totally worth it.
Re blockers:
- Novelty: I routinely search for very niche, "boring" information, and am disappointed by how few in-depth blogposts I find.
- “AI can explain most topics better than I can”. I doubt it! I rarely find current AI as valuable as a good blog post. It tends to be shallow and regress to the mean, and b/c of hallucinations it's untrustworthy, so a lot of time is wasted fact-checking.
- Fear of shipping: if it isn't relevant, nobody will read it (unless you're already famous)
Re questions:
- What made it worth it for you?
Clarifying my thoughts, connecting with strangers who think about the same things, the leverage "having a platform" produces (it opens a lot of doors), and gaining prestige in certain niches.
- What kinds of posts actually worked (for learning, career, network, opportunities)?
I don't think this is simple to answer until the heat death of the universe. Traffic stats is a very poor estimator of value delivered. Which posts I am most proud of, and how much traffic they got, are weakly correlated.
- Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
Things that you are obsessed with. It's a tonne of work writing a good post, and sometimes you publish it and nobody cares, so it has to be intrinsically rewarding.
- If you were starting today, what would you do differently?
I don't know! Probably put less effort into trying to appear intelligent/impressive, which rarely works anyway.
These are my off-the-top thoughts based on over a decade of blogging.
"If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking." - Leslie Lamport
Writing a blog entry to simply clarify your own thinking makes it worth it.
I may be in the minority, perhaps even a minority of one, but I disagree that publishing a blog is worthwhile even if nobody reads it. I honestly don't understand the point. Write a diary for yourself if you want, fine, but what exactly are you gaining by putting it out there? It's even worse if you have to force yourself to do it, which appears to be the case here. Force yourself to exercise every day, because that's good for your physical health, but is blogging good for your health?
Writing in public is performance art. Some people are naturally performance artists and need to perform to satisfy some internal urge. If you're not one of them, don't let anyone else convince you that you need to be one. It's ok to not blog. The idea that everyone should have a blog is completely unjustified.
I read another comment that said you should write blog posts at least once a week. That sounds a lot like a job. An unpaid job at that. Forget this silly peer pressure.
You definitely are in the minority - of minus one. :)
Between diary and blog, a blog is the better option, because it has all the advantages of a diary, but also the potential upside of publicity (if you want it).
> the potential upside of publicity
How much publicity have you received? Be careful what you wish for. It's crucial to note that publicity brings a number of potential downsides. For example, close to home, Hacker News commenters will totally trash you, whether you deserve it or not.
Long time blogger here.
1) AI absolutely makes new blogs hard to get any traffic, unless you are already famous somewhere else
2) That said it’s still worth writing even if it’s just for yourself
Just do it.
Writing is difficult and like all art forms, it’s subject to impostor syndrome. Blogging is the best way I have found to remind yourself that you’re not an impostor. And the more experience you get proving you’re not an impostor, the easier impostor syndrome is to deal with.
Realistically if you start now, you’re years away from a devoted readership and that’s fine. You’ll gain from publishing and if you’re diligent, you’ll gain from watching your writing improve.
For me, I like writing and can’t get paid enough in publishing or as a writer to do it professionally. So it’s worth it for me because I have a lot of fun writing. I spent a good part of my life hunting for eyeballs and now I’m content just writing whether anyone reads it or not.
I’m not sure that I’d recommend any particular theme, cadence or style for a new blogger. And I definitely wouldn’t recommend a style of post. Rather those sorts of things will come organically as you get used to writing and start building a community. When you’re getting started, just focus on writing, trying to build habits and learning how to edit yourself. Most writers will struggle with one of the three on their way to developing a voice so if you’re going through hell you’re likely on the right path.
If I were starting today, I’d focus less on hunting eyeballs and more on writing for the joy of it. I’d also spend a lot more time writing about subjects that I’m not interested in because that’s really good practice. And finally, I wouldn’t worry so much about writer’s block - it happens, it sucks but it goes away when you stop worrying about it.
On the subject of writer’s block, if it’s something you struggle with I have a great exercise for you. When you’re stuck, interview yourself about the finished piece you’re stuck on. Pretend it’s done and interview yourself. I would have started doing that twenty five years ago and I’d be a far better writer now because of it.
Finally, keep everything you write and read it regularly but there’s nothing wrong with pruning your blog regularly. If things you wrote two years ago are embarrassing today that means you’re a better writer. Go with that.
It's about writing. It's about finishing something and getting it out there. The intellectual stimulation of the act of writing is the whole point. Write into the void, even. But write.
Given the way you're framing this no, it's not worth it for you to blog. Using words like "shipping","low-signal", "networking". And odd ideas like blog posts having to "work" and provide some tangible gain. These are for-profit concepts so I assume you want to do this to make money or meet people to allow you to make money.
There is no money in blogs if there ever was. The money moved away to social media a long time ago. Leave the blogs to human people talking to each other and showing off their gardens and pets and hobbies.
too many variabils! too many douts! shtack overphlow! shegmentation fawlt! kore dumph! jfdi!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46269170
I have a blog, hardly anyone reads it, or hardly anyone did back when it was on wordpress and I got stats for that kind of thing; now it's on github and doesn't track anything, I have no idea. Back when I did know, I found that linking to it from here got me 30-100 extra hits, compared to the 1-3 any normal post would get.
> •“Nobody needs this” / “It’s not original” […] •What made it worth it for you?
I would still recommend it: it does save me time having to explain myself in detail, as I can just post a link to whichever blog post is the essay about whatever.
> •“AI can explain most topics better than I can”
AI can be more persuasive than most humans, but it doesn't make it more correct, the lack of correctness is a common criticism of AI slop by just about everyone.
> •A bit of fear: shipping something that feels naive or low-signal
Allow yourself to be naïve, we're all that at some point. Here's one of mine, where in 2018 I look back on predictions made in 2012. Some held up well, some, it turned out, were physically impossible: https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2018/07/17-16.09.05.html
Naïve errors: Optical-wavelength metamaterial cloaking, fabric or otherwise, is not possible, the bandwidth is too narrow; Robot cars may be technically available in many countries, but they're sure not "rapidly displacing human drivers because they are much safer and therefore cheaper to insure".
Close but no cigar: Nameplate solar power didn't reach par with global electricity use in 2024, but it did get to 1865 TW, which would have been 82% of global electricity use at the time I made the prediction. Actual global electricity use is 50% higher today than in 2012.
Correct: China's GDP did in fact more than double between 2012 and 2022: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=GDP+china+2022+%2F+GDP+...
> •Any practical format that lowers the bar (length, cadence, themes)?
Something you find interesting. Look at my blog and you won't only find deep thoughts, you'll also find this because it was fun at the time: https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2018/12/21-09.27.02.html
But not just jokes, because I'll also write about bioprinted fairy drones: https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2021/05/22-21.06.36.html
I've thought like this for a while, even before AI. I figure that if I do write, it will either be ripped off, outdone by a person, or suspected of having been ripped off from somewhere. There are also topics I would not feel comfortable blogging about because they are not PC. I think it is worth developing the skill of writing however. I haven't found a real way to solve these issues 100%, but it occurred to me that the odds of me having these problems would be lower if I paywalled my stuff or at least required registration for access. Free registration would not work if everyone did it the same way, but perhaps there is a way to have your own system that no crawler would bother trying to interface with.
Writing isn't about the produced artifact, it's about the process of taking abstract thought patterns and translating them into written text. In the same way that art isn't about coloured pixels on a screen or paint on a canvas. In our new world of AI slop, human writing is becoming more important, not less important.
> “Nobody needs this” / “It’s not original”
We need it more than ever. Who cares if it's not original, AI slop isn't original either.
> “AI can explain most topics better than I can”
Don't write tutorials.
> A bit of fear: shipping something that feels naive or low-signal
Life is about overcoming your fears.