The End of Blogging?

I've been wondering for quite some time if there's any point in dedicating time to writing this post. Ultimately, I decided that yes, there is. As the title itself suggests, I've decided to stop blogging - or at least I'm strongly considering it. This short post is meant to explain the reason for this decision, but it also poses an open question to you: do you see any sense in me continuing to create content here?

First, a little bit of history. I created this blog over 15 years ago (!). Initially, it was only in Polish and used a completely different platform (a self-modified version of php-fusion). Over time, my approach evolved, and instead of bothering with technicalities, I decided to just focus on writing. Hence, the somewhat minimalist, yet sufficient, look. In the meantime, a lot has changed on the blog itself: comments, files, and at one point, even a gallery. It has all led to its final stage, where there's just text, code snippets, and that's about it.

All these years have brought huge changes in my life, both professionally and personally. I started a family, got heavily into various sports, and joined an amazing startup where I still work after many years (which is not the norm in the IT industry). Sometimes I had more time for writing, sometimes less; I think that's understandable and obvious. The posts were therefore irregular, written without any pressure, but rather on a whim, a sudden idea, right after reading a great book, or learning something new. You can see how much they've changed over time: from hardware reviews, through topics related to coding and team management, to issues concerning my current occupation, DevOps. I must admit, this blog is truly a huge part of my life.

So, why the decision to abandon it? Well, the last 2-3 years have also seen significant changes to the Internet as we know it. Online forums died out a long time ago, shifting traffic to social networks. Now, many of those networks are also inactive, as traffic has been taken over by new media based on short videos. The development of AI has also completely changed the landscape. I currently use it very intensively myself and have noticed that it's a more convenient and faster option than... reading blogs. Therefore, I have reason to believe that other people are no longer reading this blog either, but rather learning certain facts through LLM models that have read it. While they had the chance, that is, because I'm now blocking them via Cloudflare. My reasoning is that since I pay for an AI subscription, they should pay for access to the content that helps them learn. I won't hide the fact that this was the "final nail in the coffin" that has greatly discouraged me.

Another thing is my online activity, or more precisely, its significant decline. I used to be active in many communities, on this blog, and on many websites. Over the past year, I have abandoned and/or deleted many accounts and a lot of content (for example, everything from LinkedIn) and I no longer devote time to it. Why? Because I prefer the real world and my family - life changes. And that's where this approach to the blog comes from. A question for you: do you find it useful? The traffic here was never high. Besides, I haven't been keeping any statistics for a long time, so I don't even know if anyone actually visits. It would be good to know.