Blogs Are Dying. Long Live the Blogs.

When I discovered FIRE in 2016. I’d never read any blog before. I don’t think I’d even read a single blog post for that matter. 

Sure, I knew of blogs. I’d come across some on interwebs searches. And probly some had been recommended to me over the years.

But nary a word of one had I read.

The write stuff

Then I read this article, which changed everything for me. It led me to the Mr. Money Mustache (MMM) blog. Which led me to another blog. Which in turn led me to yet another blog. And so on and so on. Until I realized that this FIRE thing was an entire subculture, with its own world of blogs. 

I soon was hoovering up blog content in heroic amounts. And lawdy, lawdy, were there amazing blogs that I read. Aside from MMM’s, there was 1500 Days; Afford Anything; Budgets Are Sexy; Go Curry Cracker; The Mad Fientist; Our Next Life; Retire by 40; Think, Save, Retire; Mr. Tako Escapes (RIP?). And more. So, so many more. 

The quality level on these blogs was—and, for those still going strong, remains—astoundingly high. I got the highest quality personal finance advanced degree, with a concentration in FIRE. For the low, low price of free.

What’s more, J. Money—the author of Budgets Are Sexy—built and published Rockstar Finance, an outstanding aggregator of FIRE blogs. In time, some other aggregators started up and had at it as well. 

Through these tools, I discovered and ripped through even more great blogs. Almost on a weekly basis. 

Amazing.

Post blog

In time, FIRE-focused podcasts entered the scene. First one. Then a few more. Then a torrent. Later came FIRE-focused YouTube channels. Some standalone. Others an existing podcast’s video presence. 

Lotsa great content on these audio and video platforms to be sure. But it soon became a trend that new entries into the FIRE content space gravitated directly to the audio and visual, and less to blogs. 

In time, Rockstar Finance was sold and driven into the grave. Some top-quality bloggers stopped blogging, too, in some cases lamenting that traffic to their sites was in terminal decline and positing that podcasts and YouTube channels were sucking up the eyeballs.  

I found all of this disappointing. Although I loves me a FIRE-focused podcast and YouTube channel, my first love remains blogs. Reason being, I think, is that when one writes, the first take is rarely the published take. Blogging takes thinking, and rethinking. And rewriting. Often lotsa rewriting. Because as one writes, one learns, including about what one thinks. The result often is a piece reflecting not just the research that the blogger conducted, but the mental wrestling that he or she went through in the writing process. 

In short, the posted content is a finely crafted piece. What’s more, there often are great comments to each post. Speaking for myself, I often get as much out of the comments as I do from the actual post.

Now, to be fair, several Big League bloggers are still blogging, even if in many cases less frequently than back in the day. Others may not actively be blogging, but have kept their sites alive, so that their content still can be accessed. But these days there are way fewer FIRE-focused churning out content. I’m lucky to discover 5 blogs in a year nowadays. 

In the aggregate

Lamenting all this, I recently decided to pay a visit to Personal Finance Blogs (PFB), one of those aggregators I mentioned above. When PFB launched and for some years after, it linked to tons of great blogs. But before my recent jaunt over to PFB land, I’d not visited the site in, easily a year or two. 

My, how things have changed. 

PFB is just an aggregator. It pulls the content that’s out there. So, one can’t really like or dislike it. But holy cow was I surprised by what I saw on PFB on my recent visit. 

First, the content on PFB came from an infinitesimally smaller number of blogs. Far, far more disappointing was the predominant blog post focus. Back in the day, posts were original and often longform. The content published on PFB when I recently visited, however, was probably 80 percent “Top #” lists. Worse, Top # lists mostly on (to me) dumb topics.

Now I don’t reflexively dislike Top # lists. But for my money, they’re far less valuable than an original, longform blog post. I’m also of the opinion that if you’re going to do a Top # list, you’d better have a darned good idea and command of the whole universe of the full list. Otherwise, you’re publishing at best arbitrary and almost completely questionable content. Sadly, I think almost all Top # lists are thus. In short, I think most of them are garbage. From top to bottom.

What’s the point of this stupid surely “original, longform” blog post you ask, Dear Reader? Well, I guess I dunno. Other than to lament the changed state of the FIRE content universe. And to point you to some of the great bloggers. Maybe spur you to finding even more, too. 

And in the end . . . 

Perhaps mostly, however, to salute my fellow (quality) bloggers out there (this is not to say that my blog is quality . . . cuz’ it ain’t). Mostly for all the great content they’ve produced. But also, in some cases, for keepin’ on truckin’ even in light of diminishing numbers of eyeballs reading their stuff. To them I say, for many of you, my two eyeballs are excited to read what you write next.