I think technologists like myself sometimes get confused between something that is potential, versus something that is real.
Small (well not small…) example:
With this personal blog I have the *potential* of reaching anyone – across the entire world – with an Internet connection.
That’s amazing when you think about it for more than a split second.
It’s easy to get caught up on that empowering potential and miss the hard realities that define it.
Every lottery ticket *can* win.
Virtually none of them *will* win.
Blog-evangelists deliberately sell people the dream of the former, and deny the reality of the latter.
I get your point about much blog evangelism to be sure.
But about that word – ‘win’…
I’m not rich from my blog. However I met you through it (not in person, but I hope someday), and my life is indeed, richer for it.
An an earlier channel I ran on the Kosovo war led to me getting read by some folks in Russia.
And I regularly bump into folks, in person, I’ve met through blogging.
I yearn for a nuanced view to take hold.
But we humans don’t do nuance too well do we? And we technologists (developers, sys admins, etc), really have a hard time with it. Things either work – or don’t. Are on. Or off. One. Or zero.
It’s not about “nuance”, but bait-and-switch.
To continue the lottery analogy, that’s like saying, “I didn’t win the jackpot – but I won a few dollars. Isn’t that winning, of a sort?”
No. Not in the sense conjured up by “reaching anyone – across the entire world”.
Playing the lottery is a poor way to make money, because for almost everyone, the amount of money they spend will far exceed the amount of money they receive.
Blogs are similarly a very poor way of gaining the sort of audience under discussion, since they deflect a lot of energy into very unproductive areas. Note what this DOES NOT say – not that it’s impossible for anything to return, but it’s like spending $100 in lottery tickets to win $10 in prizes. That’s a bad deal which is why so much is devoting to not having people examine it.
“Blogs are similarly a very poor way of gaining the sort of audience under discussion, since they deflect a lot of energy into very unproductive areas. Note what this DOES NOT say – not that it’s impossible for anything to return, but it’s like spending $100 in lottery tickets to win $10 in prize”
I have to return to my comment – it counts upon what your goal is.
I’ve gotten a great return on investment from my blog. If I was seeking fame and fortune, I might think otherwise, but I’m not.
I’m seeking my own definition of success.
There’s a huge difference between ‘reaching anyone’ and ‘reaching everyone’. But that kinda gets glossed over all too often as well.
I tend to think it is over enthusiasm and a bug in thinking that leads to declarations of utopianism and the ignoring of realities – not deliberate bait and switch (well most of the time… some folks are just trying to sell something).
But it leads to the same view, a view we both agree is flawed. We simply feel the motivations behind promoting that view are different, I think.