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I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

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Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#31

Post by sasha_fishter »

distcs wrote: post #25
rlgth wrote: post #19

I no longer read blog posts because they got worse. There are no longer any active quality bloggers like Steve Yegge or Joel Spolsky. Employee blog posts from Big Tech now push the corporate agenda. Stepping out of line "has consequences", so no one speaks freely any more. Self employed people are afraid of being crushed by Big Tech if they dissent. The result are blogs that are as interesting as reading the Pravda.…

Agree! That is why I did an Ask HN sometime back: "Ask HN: Relatively less known but good blogs?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34258458 (6 points, 5 comments) It did not get the number of responses I hoped for. But as a rule I avoid anything coming from mass blogging platforms like medium, substack, devto and similar sites. They may occasionally have good articles but most of the articles from these sites are…

Seems like a great idea for building a product :)

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#32

Post by niemandhier »

rr888 wrote: post #8

I wish I could do this, as books are far more rewarding. However I keep getting distracted by regular browsing & SM.

Try audiobooks, I usually listen for 30 minutes before sleep. It’s not great for math and cs but philosophy and history work well.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#33

Post by fedeb95 »

I have noticed the same, however my conclusion is different. Typically when you read a book, your average book has more signal than your average web article or blog post. That's because more filtering has happened, like time, editors, etc. sometimes I find good web content (mostly from the top HN posts) and I don't just scroll, but I read. When I find myself scrolling the first few lines, I immediately close the link.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#34

Post by a13o »

I stopped reading non-fiction books. Most of them have about a blog post worth of ideas, but the publisher had the author pad it out to X00 pages because that's what makes their business model make sense.

I haven't fully sworn off blogs, but I will skim anything brought to my attention on Medium, a corporate site, or from search results. My default assumption for these is that I'm reading content marketing and not an actual blog post.

Tutorials are probably the most information dense things these days. Followed by podcasts, although the content marketers are actively trying to corrupt that medium.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#35

Post by Lapsa »

maybe I've seen too much or have grown old and grumpy - but I just can't find any mind blowing articles anymore. most of the stuff I find somewhat boring and/or irrelevant. also reading books more than ever (brb finishing up last couple chapters of 'War of the Worlds').

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#36

Post by elias94 »

Books are curated content that has been reviewed by editors and are usually well written. Better if the books is printed by a relevant publishing company and even better if the book has been translated which usually means is relevant. Also there are so many books and so many topics to read that is impossible to get bored.

Articles are easy to produce and publish, there's no review and often are just another way to do self/brand promoting without real content. Good blogs are difficult to spot and to keep track. At the same time articles can give you the sense of a trend and what people are thinking, and the point of view of a niche of people.

So to give a time-quality ratio; socials < blogs/articles < books

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#37

Post by NikolaNovak »

Depends how you define "Blog Post". There are web pages / articles I still read - I'll check out things by Derek Sivers, Patrick McKenzie/Bits About Money, Money Stuff by Matt Levine, all by local HN recommendations. Similarly, I find a lot of good one-off recommendations on HN; is the hit ratio 100%, or even 50%, goodness no. But signal-to-noise ratio is still worth my time. I will read Thom Hogan on photography more than weekly. Science Babe's blogs/posts are interesting enough, as well as other more "traditional" science / astronomy bloggers.

I actually read a lot LESS books than I used to. I was an avid book reader; but several things happened: 1. My time is significantly reduced by being a 43year old with kids, work, house, mortgage 2. I've read a lot, so it's.... harder to find a new idea in a book, that interests me, especially one that's worth a few hundred pages or rather has hundreds of pages of (to me) new/interesting stuff. Basically, my attention span / my ability to devote dozen hours / the value I need to extract out of each our has changed.

I agree that there's a lot of useless posts; they've been increasing in ratio for years; and now with AI I'm sure they'll increase that much more. But individuals (and even teams) who produce quality content still exist. Heck, it's not a blog, but I've literally just discovered Tom Scott on Youtube - how did I miss that for the last 5-8 years?? I'm sure there are equally great bloggers out there I've clueless of. There's definitely opportunities in helping us identify them.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#38

Post by sasha_fishter »

MisterTea wrote: post #28

Are the books you read similar in subject to the blog posts you read? I bet they are not. To me it sounds like you are bored or tired of reading about the same material. It's burnout really. It might be the simple that there isn't much new or interesting material in your area of interest and most blog posts are rehashing the same info you already know. Taking a break is fine. Maybe its time to explore hobbies you've…

It's similar. I.e. psychology of users, building startups as I'm right now building one, so I want to learn as much as possible. Blogs are not bad, I personally just loose ambition to read it and absorb it like I do when I read the book. I know it's totally different medium, and blogs are fast, books are slow, but I just waisting time scrolling through post, while I can read a book meanwhile.

Re: I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books

#40

Post by fullshark »

The amount of poor quality blogposts, in particular the volume of poor quality blogposts that are covert advertisements for something (a product, a book, the author's self image, the company they run, etc) just means you are very likely reading something that's a waste of time. I've adapted and find books to be more likely valuable information if not particularly fresh information.
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