Decade of blogging
Decade! Ten years of regular-ish publishing have passed since I published the classic “Hello there!” and it feels pretty satisfying. Regular writing is good for so many reasons, but on this one, I elaborated two years ago in “Eight years of blogging”. Thinking clarity, job opportunities, improved vocabulary, and a playground to test things out are just a few of the reasons why it is great to keep a little corner of the internet just for yourself. It was only two years ago, so it feels a bit redundant to write another article, but damn, what kind of absurdly crazy two years they were! I have some thoughts.
Today a little bit ranty list of challenges for creators nowadays and how to stay motivated to pursue. It contains some spicy takes on some of the things you may swear by, but this is my blog and I can write whatever I want here. Another good thing about having a personal website.
Last two years
Since AI tools hit the masses in November 2022, all of a sudden everyone is a writer, artist, programmer, and music composer. Folks publish hundreds of articles a day on their company website to get some extra SEO points. Spotify is flooded with autogenerated music, and they actually promote this nonsense because of lower royalty fees. Innocent kids are obsessed with click-generators in the form of dancing fruits on YouTube that spread misinformation. A quarter of the students nowadays submit homework without ever proofreading it. AI slop is everywhere!
This post is not about the quality of AI tools’ results, but in short, it is mostly shit. Every day you come across another successful story that someone built XYZ without writing a single line of code. Give me just one example of the app you use daily, a game that hooked you in, or any creation that you truly enjoyed that was made entirely without human touch. Just one. Exactly!
This blog, like plenty of other technical websites, experiences the lowest traffic in history. Blogging doesn’t feel as motivational anymore. Why spend hours writing a technical piece that barely anyone will ever read? Most of the answers to technical struggles are a few clicks away in ChatGPT, DeepSeek, or the Claude chatbot, right? Even if you publish a post, OpenAI will suck your hard work in momentarily and resurface it in their tools without ever giving you credit for it.
AI is not the only contributor to the craziness of the last two years. The anti-Trans president of the economic kingdom sympathises with the cruel dictator of Russia. Pro-Nazi Elon destroys Twitter, which actually is a good thing because decentralised alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky gain huge adoption. Unfortunately, Meta’s CEO, who loves free speech, blocks all links to the Fediverse-driven Pixelfed on his platforms.
Step back to stay relevant
At first glance, the situation does not look like the slow process of blogging is an idea worth pursuing. Precisely the opposite is true! Critical thinking required for writing (and other acts of creation) is the only thing that can save us from becoming idiots. Microsoft, the same one that made a pretty close partnership with OpenAI, funded the interesting research about “The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking.”
Moreover, while GenAI can improve worker efficiency, it can inhibit critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving. Higher confidence in GenAI’s ability to perform a task is related to less critical thinking effort. When using GenAI tools, the effort invested in critical thinking shifts from information gathering to information verification; from problem-solving to AI response integration; and from task execution to task stewardship.
For the exact same reason why I ditched modern coding tools that want to control my actions, for the same reason I feel more motivated than ever to keep on writing. I really don’t want skills that I am proud of to diminish. Despite that, it all sounds like a big rant against AI tools, I’m not against them at all. I will continue using them for what they are good at, but I want my creative process to stay AI-free.
POSSE
Social media channels are great for spreading the word about a new article. But where should we post these days? Twitter is over and shame on you if you still support Elon’s “frees speech” farm. Luckily, we have many better alternatives. Mastodon is what I use most nowadays for a chit-chat with the rest of the IndieWeb folks. Bluesky is another popular alternative, but due to some funding decisions the company made, I wouldn’t be so sure about the ethical future of this platform. Social media comes and goes, so it is impossible to pick the one.
My absolute favourite ‘social’ place to be, and the one I am most confident about regarding its future, is the Web. I want my social media profile to be this very website, and a meticulously crafted list of RSS channels to be my feed. I will continue publishing here as the canonical place for things I want people to read and syndicate wherever I feel appropriate. Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere is what I believe in and what I will continue to do as I have been doing for the past few years.
On point, Pawel. So many things resonate with me. Owning your content POSSE, writing for you first and not others...
I also own a blog (actually, many sites) where I mostly right for me (when I write about code it's always for me to revisit in the future. A public wiki is you will). Visits are low but who cares.
Also, good to have you on Mastodon!
Thanks for reading. You can stay assured that you have more than one reader of your blog, because I am a regular visitor :)
Well said, Pawel!
The state of affairs looks pretty bad, but I feel like RSS is stronger than ever. I love reading all these long (and short) posts people put on their blogs. My RSS feed sometimes feels like a social feed. And I'm so there for it.
For me, this personal curation and algorithm-free following is the only way forward — now that search sucks more and more, we all must decide who we trust and what we want to consume.
But anyways... Just wanted to say Hi, and it's great to see you still blogging. :) Congrats to the 10th anniversary! 🥂
Thanks for reading and being a regular contributor to my RSS feed mate. Lets keep on bloggin!
I am in the same boat as you. I am even more niche because I stick to my native language. Blogging on your own terms creates something rewarding and lasting. And it is something you can point to when needed (job application, discussions). I have been pondering if I should add a "created without AI help" to all my posts. And RSS news feed have become very important to me. I do get some algorhythmic news on my Android phone and they are (sadly) quite reliable on missing the important stuff. Daily scanning of my RSS feeds is what really keeps me up to date.
Thanks for visiting Lars. Yeah, I am also tempted to create an AI statement on my website. I really like Hidde's AI statement. I am tempted to put a shorter version of something like that literally on my homepage.