Blogging was the corner stone of "web 2.0" when I was back in college and it made the Internet feel alive again. People had voices, ideas and opinions. For the low price of $12/mo and a little bit of elbow grease, you too, can tell people about your grandmothers favorite jello mould recipe via your WordPress Blog and a installed theme.

Today, however, almost every *social* platform is a built to broadcast, much like our historical models of print, TV and radio, and care much less about the interaction between publisher and subscriber.

The internet, as others have mentioned, is becoming a monolith of 2-3 websites that own all of our data. Everyone has a "persona" on Twitter, LinkedIn, Substack, whatever.

I suspect this is happening because a few platforms own a majority of the users and network effect of a viral post is more valuable than sharing ideas and thoughts. Especially when the content has shifted from ones personal experience to chasing fame and influence.

There are far less people having conversations on the internet again. It was like this before social platforms and somehow, we've reverted to this version while chasing fame and noterity and forgot that comments, likes, republishing were built to connect people rather than "amplify" a message.

GoFundMe brings communities together better than any other "social" platform today.

All that being said, I'm gonna start blogging again, I think.