Interesting view from someone currently starting out with a blog and how today’s guides on starting and writing a today are written with eventual monetisation in mind.

Why is that the end goal of blogging? Of writing? Just to make money and grow our followers? To increase our traffic so we can expose our visitors to 300 repetitive ads that take up their entire phone screen? To “convert” our readers into our customers, because them reading and enjoying what we have to say simply isn’t enough? Personally, I want nothing to do with it. I’m sick of everything having to be a hustle now, even something personal like sharing our ramblings with strangers on the internet.

Ironically, it was early bloggers who thought about monetisation long before big tech intruded the space. Around the time when Kottke and Gruber went full time, ad networks for bloggers were created, mommy bloggers reviewed diapers and bearded dudes in gingham shirts wrote about their experience on that new farmer’s market—in return for a couple of dollars.

Sure, it all got worse, a lot worse, once the marketing departments rolled in and talked about publication schedules, personal brands and building an audience. But the foundations for what we’re seeing today, influencers advertising rubbish products, these foundations are rooted in the early blogging community.