kottke.org was one of the first blogs I remember reading regularly. In this recent interview titled Last blog standing, Jason Kottke talks about how blogging compares with other options out there for writers in 2018 as his own blog turns 20: On “the kids” and social media:

I got the feeling that if it’s not on Facebook and it’s not on Instagram, and it doesn’t involve their friends, they don’t really care that much.

​Using other membership options:

Whereas if you use Patreon, you go to Patreon.com, you’re in their experience. That’s the other thing I really didn’t like about it; I wanted to keep control over my membership experience. I didn’t want to outsource it to Patreon if in three years they do some sort of Facebook-esque thing and start hosting more and more content on their site so that it becomes more about them and less about the creators. I could just see that happening, and I didn’t want to go anywhere near it.

The blog as his job and as his life:

I never really got sick of the site. I would every once in a while, but since the membership thing happened, I really like sitting down and going to work for my members. It’s not just that it’s my job. It’s like, I want to do this for them because they have been kind enough to support me. You don’t get that feeling about having advertising on your site. It’s not the same.

​I went to grab the link for his site to write this post and the first article linked was this one on a video blogger dealing with cancer that I immediately had to watch. Congratulations Jason on getting your “one-man-band” to Twenty.