The blog is dead, long live the blog

18 Jun, 2025

Just like there's a neverending debate wether punk is dead or not¹, we can't seem to agree wether the blog as an impactful medium is over. So it amused me to read two opposing declarations of influential bloggers that I follow.

Venkatesh Rao wrote this last autumn when he announced the retirement of his blog Ribbonfarm:

I do think that the end really is here for the blogosphere though. This time it really is different. I’ve weathered many ups and downs in the blogosphere over my 17 years in it, but now it feels like the end of the blogging era. And what has emerged to take its place is not the blogosphere (and really shouldn’t try to be), even though parts of it have tried to claim the word.

Then, a few days ago, Simon Willison wrote the following in his post for the 23rd birthday of his blog:

I really do feel like blogging is onto its second wind. The amount of influence you can have on the world by consistently blogging about a subject is just as high today as it was back in the 2000s when blogging first started.

The best time to start a blog may have been twenty years ago, but the second best time to start a blog is today.

I'm withholding judgement about who's right, and maybe they're not actually talking about the same thing. But Simon's statement does give me cause for optimism.