Comment by mikewarot

The incentives have disappeared. I'm old (64), and when I started out, there were printed trade publications for pretty much any discipline, that showed up in the mail, paid for by advertisers. The articles were deep and useful, because they had to respect the audiences time enough to avoid the trash bin.

The money that funded those got sucked up by ad-tech companies like Google and Facebook.

Blogging, was a low to non-profit version of the same thing. You'd direct your RSS reader to your favorite feeds, read what your "friends" wrote, and reply in the comments, etc.

The thing that happened was the audience shifted from technical people happy to deal with RSS readers, and do the work of maintaining subscriptions found the process of getting a blog going to be burdensome, and moved into the easier walled gardens.

The effort of blogging to a stand alone platform wasn't horrible, nor was writing and editing something long enough to be worth the time and consideration of the reader. To make it worth it for a blogger though, you need an audience, and the feedback cycle was slow, through Google for anyone not using an RSS reader. It was really hard to get attention enough to feel the effort was worth it.

The social networks arrived, and they offered faster feedback, and more of it, with a single mechanism to handle replies, instead of each platform having a different system, and anti-spam mechanism. When Robert Scoble gave up on blogging, that signaled the end of it for me.

A technical blog is a teaching tool, and nobody is willing to pay the teachers enough in money, or attention, to make it worth it.

One area that has bloomed though, because that's where the incentives moved, is video blogging. Here are some YouTube channels that might be interesting to you:

https://www.youtube.com/@HuygensOptics -- if you want to learn about optics

https://www.youtube.com/@EEVblog -- an opinionated Australian with one of the oldest EE focused channels

https://www.youtube.com/@CuriousMarc -- deep technical/repair videos

https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingandTinkering -- alas, Robert Murray-Smith is no longer with us, he had many interesting things to say

https://www.youtube.com/@ThisOldTony -- Machining videos with a sense of humor

https://www.youtube.com/@smartereveryday -- an engineer who used to field test missiles learns new things all the time

https://www.youtube.com/@Blondihacks -- Canadian machinist who teaches along the way doing projects

https://www.youtube.com/@TheAmpHour -- an audio blog about electronics design

https://www.youtube.com/@Computerphile -- various topics related to computers with staff mostly from the University of Nottingham

https://www.youtube.com/@primitivetechnology9550 -- John Plant teaches by showing, how to build the most basic technology ever, he started with a rock and a stick, and worked his way up from there. Turn on subtitles, he doesn't talk, he annotates on screen, it's wonderfully quiet

https://www.youtube.com/@OCPTAP -- if you're a time nut, this is the channel for you, it's about very, very precise timing

https://www.youtube.com/@NileRed -- crazy and almost safe chemistry experiments

https://www.youtube.com/@urituchmanpigeon -- an eclectic approach to building things

https://www.youtube.com/@CaseyJones-Engineer -- an actual engineer who picks apart various things gone wrong with various current events.

https://www.youtube.com/@mrpete222 -- Mr Pete, retired shop teacher with an attitude, and a lot of things to show you how to do.

https://www.youtube.com/@PracticalEngineeringChannel -- Grady, another actual engineer, shows how infrastructure works, with practical demonstrations built in his garage, and some on-site things as well

https://www.youtube.com/@DavesGarage -- Dave Plummer, the guy who wrote task manager, and the zip file handler for Windows, talks about various things computer related

https://www.youtube.com/@AnastasiInTech -- A chip designer talks about the latest trends in chip fabrication

https://www.youtube.com/@JeffGeerling -- Things related to radio broadcasting, raspberry pi, mini-racks, gps timing, etc. His dad is a broadcast engineer.

https://www.youtube.com/@RealEngineering -- What it says on the time, breakdowns of how things actually work

https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping -- Sal Mercogliano, an actual mariner and Professor, discusses current events in shipping on the high seas.

https://www.youtube.com/@MentourNow -- A pilot discusses current aviation events

https://www.youtube.com/@NDC -- NDC Conferences - Interesting programming talks

https://www.youtube.com/@ZackFreedman -- Wild and crazy, the inventor of GridFinity

https://www.youtube.com/@voiceofthunder9620 -- An actual scientist, a chemist, who really, really despises Elon Musk, and sometimes plays with NaK, a liquid metal at room temperature. He might be the one who gives us a work-around for global warming

https://www.youtube.com/@NoEngineerHere -- Interesting projects, but NOT an engineer

https://www.youtube.com/@StefanGotteswinter -- a proper German doing machining projects

https://www.youtube.com/@dgelbart - Dan invented the first practical stepper, which gets used in the manufacturing of every chip ever. You really should watch his "how to make things" tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/@3blue1brown -- Grant Sanderson talks about Math, beautifully illustrated and story-told

https://www.youtube.com/@Kathy_Loves_Physics -- The real history of how physics got to where it is

https://www.youtube.com/@oxtoolco -- Recently retired from Berkeley's University machine shop, lots of practical tips related to machining very precisely

https://www.youtube.com/@TITANSofCNC -- CNC manufacturing, they offer free education in the trade

https://www.youtube.com/@Clough42 -- Machining and CNC related projects

https://www.youtube.com/@arduinoversusevil2025 -- Arduino vs Evil, an opinionated Canadian who swears a bit does various things related to machining, with a lot of tear downs of tools.

https://www.youtube.com/@WardCarroll -- Former Navy Aviator talks about current events, sometimes with Sal from What's up with Shipping (see above)

https://www.youtube.com/@tested -- Adam Savage, of Mythbusters does various builds

https://www.youtube.com/@w2aew -- Radio theory and projects

https://www.youtube.com/@AppliedScience -- Some of the coolest science projects, including things like spin coating, supercritical CO2, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/@RexKrueger -- Traditional Woodworking

https://www.youtube.com/@DylanBeattie -- Dylan is great at breaking down things that you think are simple... like "Plain Text" formatting

https://www.youtube.com/@ShakeTheFuture -- Melting metal in a microwave, so you can do home casting

https://www.youtube.com/@joepie221 -- A machinist in Austin Texas, with a lot to teach

https://www.youtube.com/@KevlinHenney -- Talks about programming

https://www.youtube.com/@GOTO- -- GOTO Conferences, programming talks

https://www.youtube.com/@essentialcraftsman -- Practical construction and blacksmithing