Elizabeth Spiers, writing on her own blog again finally, about how blogging is better than social media platforms because it is harder to pick a fight. (I’m generalizing, go read her post.)
I think of this now as the difference between living in a house you built that requires some effort to visit and going into a town square where there are not particularly rigorous laws about whether or not someone can punch you in the face. Before social media, if someone wanted to engage with you, they had to come to your house and be civil before you’d give them the time of day or let them in. And if they wanted you to engage with them, they’d have to make their own house compelling enough that you’d want to visit.
Getting a toot boosted on Mastodon is good. Getting your blog linked to by a fellow blogger? The best.
Note: Spiers writes about blogging in the past tense. I have to remind myself not to do that. Blogging is alive and well. Like the old forests, blogging will still be here when the social media landscape has withered and died.