It's Far Easier to Start a Site (or Blog) Than to Keep It Going
THE DAYS of Novell aren't fully forgotten by us. We still remember all the Novell blogs that vanished and its chief marketing people - or one misguided person rather - asserting that blogs are easy to start but harder to then maintain. He decided to publicly (and partly) speak of his own experience, as he was neglecting his own blog. The EPO's blog has been dead for years (offline indefinitely) and we see more people choosing static pages as the way to go.
Back in the Novell days, which were also a good period for Canonical (when Ubuntu had a real community), the site "OMG Ubuntu" was publishing several articles per day, sometimes 5+ per day. We still remember that. Later on Joey created "OMG Chrome" (proprietary!) and "OMG Linux" and look how the former aged:
No posts in 2022, only 2 in 2021.
Now, however, we're seeing something similar in "OMG Linux":
Very little in the past month. It used to publish every day, on average. Even just months ago...
There is a lack of news and shutdowns of news sites aren't replaced sufficiently by blogs. So just like in the Sahel, as per a new report, we have "news deserts", not just literal deserts.
Starting a site isn't hard these days (there are tools which automate the process, so there's no need for database knowledge). With GUI tools for composition, not even HTML fluency/knowledge is required. The technical barriers are low compared to necessity of long-term time investment. OMG Linux drying up, just like OMG Chrome, as all the remaining energy is devoted to OMG Ubuntu (a form of "consolidation" we see in the corporate media as well).
We planned to publish many articles yesterday (maybe 3 videos too!), but sadly we experienced nearly 6 hours of sporadic electrical outages in the area (dangerous to integrity of electric equipment, which we shut off). The so-called "smart" phones and rapid abolishment of proper landlines meant that even the phones stopped working, making emergency calls impossible for some people. The "old" landlines did not have this problem. Is technology actually improving and, if so, who for? Many of the big decisions are made for "economic" reasons (profit), not customers' convenience, safety etc. █