Blogging as a business model is almost completely dead, and I am living proof. There are several reasons for this, which I will go over in this blog post, ironically enough. The reason I’m writing it here is because I’m a writer at heart, and it’s the strength that I spent most of my young adult life cultivating. I have a degree in creative writing, and since I was young I dreamed of becoming a professional writer.

For a while, that dream had seemed to come true. But, this post isn’t about me. I’m just providing context so you understand my perspective. That’s what writers do.

Now, before I go any further, blogging as a hobby still lives on, and again, this post provides the proof. I’m writing it to help get my thoughts down and maybe someone who still cares enough to read will discover it. But it’s just not a realistic way to try and make a living anymore. Here’s why.

1. Attention Spans Have Dwindled to Nothing

You can blame social media sites like Instagram and TikTok for this one. In the past, people used to seek out blogs on the internet to learn about things, entertain themselves, and commiserate about the state of the world. Now, most people can’t be bothered to read something.

The people who do still read things are getting old. They read things because they always have, and they haven’t adopted to the age of social media. Those numbers are shrinking, while the number of young people who watch short-form videos on social media continues to increase. Even many older people are now watching short videos instead of reading blogs.

This isn’t just true for blogs, but for any form of written content. If there is a written version of it, there is a video format of the same thing that will be much more popular.

If you don’t read any more of this post, that is the main takeaway, and the catalyst for the other things I will discuss in this post.

2. AI Has Cheapened the Value of Words

Some people will disagree with me here, but I am somebody who has been writing for a long time, and I’m going to say this with my chest: AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, Bard, and others can write just as well, if not better than 90% of human writers.

Sure, AI might hallucinate sometimes, and provide false information. We’ve all read something that AI produced that is simply not true. But the structure, format, and tone of the writing, while often clinical, is genuinely better than what most people will come up with. And I’m not disparaging human writers at all––it’s just a simple fact.

Not to mention, AI technology is improving every single day, and this trajectory is likely to continue.

What this means for blogging, is that not only can you use AI to mass-produce blog articles at an insanely fast pace, so can every other person on the planet. Even people who don’t speak English as their first language can now produce content that is written in perfect English.

3. Google Algorithm Changes

Blogging was once a viable path to making money online. If you were a writer, you could start a WordPress site about a topic that you were passionate about, do a little bit of keyword research, and after some time you would start getting traffic, which could then be monetized in a number of ways.

In September of 2023, Google began a series of reactive algorithm updates that have essentially eliminated the viability of this strategy. Google was reacting to the fact that they had fallen behind in the AI race, and years of being manipulated by SEO-minded bloggers, and tanked many independent publishers under the guise of “providing helpful content.”

Writing had already taken a hit prior to this moment, but this update, and the updates that followed, killed the blog as a source of income for tens of thousands of website owners like myself, if not more. Extra Chill, my flagship brand, was getting almost 10,000 clicks per day from Google prior to this, and I was able to live a damn good life from the resulting ad revenue.

Again, I say that not to paint myself as a victim, but to provide context for my claims. If you go on X, you can find countless examples of bloggers who experienced the same thing or worse.

Not only did Google bury the independent blogs, they also introduced their controversial AI overviews, which provide the answer to your informational queries directly on their website. This makes it almost pointless for somebody to click through to a blog to find information.

What’s a writer to do?

This post may come across as negative, but that’s not the intent. It’s meant to be a realistic look at blogging and its value in the modern world. As a writer, you should ditch the idea that you can make a living with passive income off your blog alone. Pure SEO traffic is never coming back to the world of informational blogs.

If you’re thinking of starting a blog right now, with hopes of making money, my advice to you is: don’t do it. If you are passionate about writing, find it therapeutic, and are okay with having a small amount of natural discovery, then by all means, go for it. Writing is still cool and fun, and I’m still running Extra Chill just like I was in the past.

The difference now, is that I’m no longer looking at blogging alone as a way to make money. That ship has sailed, and I was lucky enough to experience what a six-figure self-employment income feels like.

Can you still make money online?

Absolutely, you can still make money online. However, if your talent is writing, you better start working on some other skills, because doing it solely with the written word is an outdated strategy. You should be looking into learning how to code, learning how to do marketing, or getting good at short-form video.

The internet is still vast. Google is still the biggest website on the internet (but maybe not for long). Google is still sending loads of traffic to business websites who have a product or service to sell. But providing information as a sole source of revenue is simply not enough anymore.

If there is anything to take away from this blog post, it’s the importance of being realistic. Look at the digital landscape, and your own online habits. Where do you spend your time? Where do your friends spend their time? That’s where you need to be.

And remember, even if you find something that works right now, there is no guarantee that it will last. Technology has become unpredictable, and changes happen slowly and then all at once. We are living in unprecedented times, and things will only get more weird from here.

Good luck, and have fun.