Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?

Post by synergy20 » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:02 PM UTC

zelphirkalt wrote: post #229

simonw wrote: post #88

Here are some reasons to start a personal blog: 1. It's a great way to learn. Teaching something to someone else has always been the best learning tool, and writing about something with an audience in mind is an effective way to capture some of that value. 2. It can be a big boost in job hunting. As a hiring manager two of the most important questions I have about a potential candidate are: Can they code? Can they co…

About point 2: I have yet to have a job interview, in which the interviewer has even taken a look at my website. Well, actually I don't know that, of course, but what I want to say is, that none so far showed any sign or indication of having taken a look, and as a consequence also no sign or indication of knowing anything about any of my showcased projects. In 95% of the cases it was just that they want to do their o…

Post by pardon_me » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:12 PM UTC

nickjj wrote: post #227

I'm not sure about this. I've released a new post every week for 10 years straight. My traffic in the last 2 years is worse than the first 2 years. At the blog's peak I was getting around 180k unique visitors a month for years. I was able to build a whole business around selling tech courses and doing contract work for the last 10 years but now traffic is so little that this is no longer feasible (not even close). Ju…

Post by raffael_de » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:21 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #213

raffael_de wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nor kids of this generation. (I fear) the blog of this generation's kids is called TikTok or whatever and the form is video instead of text.

TikTok is the exact opposite of blogging. It was about sharing bits of your daily life and personal thoughts and feelings, while building a small community. Having more than 50-100 readers was a major event (and not a thing people aimed for).

Post by raudette » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:24 PM UTC

freddie_mercury wrote: post #82

ricardobeat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Substack to me seems to be 40% self-promotion or advertising a service, 40% long-form LinkedIn posts / AI slop, and the remaining 20% is behind a subscription with eventual freebies. Mostly professional writing. It’s far from being a new blogspot.

I agree. Substack feels more like Op Ed writers realised they could make more money by self publishing than by staying at a dying media company with multiple levels of editorial oversight. To do well on Substack you need to publish pretty regularly, several times a week to keep and build an audience, and the only thing anyone can generate that fast are opinions. So Substack has really just become a decentralised Op E…

Post by bell-cot » Sat, Nov 22, 2025, 1:34 PM UTC

ksec wrote: post #142

simonw wrote: post #88

Here are some reasons to start a personal blog: 1. It's a great way to learn. Teaching something to someone else has always been the best learning tool, and writing about something with an audience in mind is an effective way to capture some of that value. 2. It can be a big boost in job hunting. As a hiring manager two of the most important questions I have about a potential candidate are: Can they code? Can they co…

My biggest problem so far is with cost. I dont like recurring fees. I could pay a one-time fee for say 100 pages and last an eternality ( or 50 years or something ). I also dont like subscription, and it has nothing to do with subscription fatigue, it is just the way I manage my money since before Youtube or Netflix took off. And so far I haven't seen any viable options. And right now I use HN comments as more like a…