Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

I found I only have something really worth saying every few years which isn't often enough to make my blog be content marketing for my personal brand. I do like my blog, I can read things I wrote a decade ago and still believe in them. Any sort of artificial cadence would undermine this.

Also as I get older I find the hot takes I used to write down are not interesting enough to share in article form. They live better as comments or tweets. I'm more aware of nuance in everything, and caveating my claims out the wazoo to appropriately constrain my claims is not worth it.

I see a lot of this hot take style writing from other young devs making it to HN front page. So that's not to say this style of writing isn't popular. But it isn't popular with me, and first and foremost I'm writing for myself.

I've had https://www.swiftjectivec.com for several years.

Benefits:

  - I don't do much front end, so I enjoy learning new stuff to maintain it like Tailwind, Jekyll, etc.
  - I learn new things all the time since I typically write technical posts.
  - I Google something, and stumble upon my *own* posts sometimes!
  - I look at it as a career benefit as well, something employers could look at.
  - It does help with other things, for example, when I created a book series over iOS - people were aware of my work, writing style and more from years of my previous posts: (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31534988)

Cons:

  - It does feel that if you don't keep it up to date you become a bit skittish, so in that sense - having one means you kinda feel like "there is always something to work on." I am still trying to make peace with this.
  - I ran sponsorships (they are still live right now) but wow did I not expect how much I don't enjoy them. Even though they were good money for, basically, doing something I already do - they are very mentally taxing for me.
  - It also becomes your online identity, for better or worse.

Overall: I love writing, so having a personal blog has been a no brainer for me. However, we are quick to say that this should be the default for everyone, and I don't think that's the case.

I think it's worth it if you calibrate your goals correctly.

Personally I have a github.io that I tried to make presentable. I have it on my CV, but actually my main goal is to do little projects I like, not necessarily things I think will impress employers.

Writing things in a blog as opposed to just having personal notes I think brings more discipline and helps you improve presentation/writing skills. You'll always take something more seriously if you do it as if somebody else has to understand it and maybe use it.

I have been writing on my personal website for a few years, and more consistently in the last year. I started by writing about more technical topics and then moved on to writing essays. My audience is small and participation nonexistent. But I always dreamed of being a writer and needed to put my stuff out there. I got no recognition, for now, but I got new ways of expressing myself, a renewed interest in literature, the arts and other writers.

How do you find forums like these?