lcamtuf :verified: :verified: :verified: on Nostr: So, my blog is about to hit 7k email subscribers (+ an unknowable number of RSS ...
So, my blog is about to hit 7k email subscribers (+ an unknowable number of RSS weirdos), which is kinda cool, but it also increasingly feels like a party at the end of the internet.
In the olden days, a nerdy site like this would have three sources of traffic: web search, hobby forums, and aggregators of tech news. Organic web search traffic has been drying up for a good while due to AI summaries and third-party AI slop. That still leaves the other two.
But independent forums have been gobbled up by Reddit, now insular and hostile to outgoing links. As for aggregators, the #1 choice was Hacker News, but the site is now an outlet for AI press releases and op-eds to the detriment of everything else:
https://infosec.exchange/@lcamtuf/116972535649965973My 2026 wake-up call was that HN didn't take this fine SWE bait:
https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/a-breakthrough-in-cc-dependency-managementSo, yeah. As the old internet withers away, Substack is one of the few non-algorithmic yet low-friction ways to share long-form content with like-minded folks. But the outlook is pretty bleak.
Published at
2026-07-25 17:35:21 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "So, my blog is about to hit 7k email subscribers (+ an unknowable number of RSS weirdos), which is kinda cool, but it also increasingly feels like a party at the end of the internet.\n\nIn the olden days, a nerdy site like this would have three sources of traffic: web search, hobby forums, and aggregators of tech news. Organic web search traffic has been drying up for a good while due to AI summaries and third-party AI slop. That still leaves the other two.\n\nBut independent forums have been gobbled up by Reddit, now insular and hostile to outgoing links. As for aggregators, the #1 choice was Hacker News, but the site is now an outlet for AI press releases and op-eds to the detriment of everything else: \n\nhttps://infosec.exchange/@lcamtuf/116972535649965973\n\nMy 2026 wake-up call was that HN didn't take this fine SWE bait:\n\nhttps://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/a-breakthrough-in-cc-dependency-management\n\nSo, yeah. As the old internet withers away, Substack is one of the few non-algorithmic yet low-friction ways to share long-form content with like-minded folks. But the outlook is pretty bleak.\n\nhttps://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/116/981/817/010/317/046/original/ac86e39b197b36ac.jpg",
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