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Choosing Between Web 3 and Blogger.com

This blog post is not something that is on the typical blogger's mind, choosing between Web 3 and Blogger hosting. I have been posting to both for many years. I started on Blogger for publishing. After some time, I started to see that some platforms started shutting down content creators. Concerned about censorship, I looked for alternatives and stumbled upon Web 3 platforms, Hive in particular. Lately, I am starting to dabble with Blogger once more.

image of blogger hands typing at a laptop
Image generated by Gemini 1.5 Pro AI

What is Web 3?


Web 3 is what decentralized publishing has been named as the successor to Web 2.0, which was the proliferation of social media. Prior to that, everybody had their Web 1.0 blogs and websites. Web 2.0 is the shared experience such as the book of face and other platforms in which people interact with each other. Well, Web 3 is more of that shared experience, except that there is no owner to the platform. Therefore, you cannot be censored. You can publish whatever you want. What makes Web 3 possible is blockchain technology, which makes your posts immutable and censorship resistant.

This immutability and censorship resistance provides you with ownership of your blog. Nobody can take it away from you.

Finally, some Web 3 platforms pay their content creators in crypto. In this particular case, I am referring to the Hive blockchain where content creators earn from posting and curating content.

Overview of Blogger:


Blogger is not without merits. First, Blogger is a reliable platform that is owned and maintained by Google. For the foreseeable future, Google will be in business. Blogger benefits from good SEO. In addition, unlike hosting your blog using a number of blog content management systems, you don't have to worry as much about account security, broken themes, or broken plug-ins. If your goal is simply to blog, then Blogger is as simple and manageable as you'll find.

The only alternative to Blogger I would consider is Publii as it makes your blog locally on your computer and sends the files to your host via FTP like in the old days. If somehow your host gets hacked, you can simply upload your files again and be done in a few minutes. Changing hosts is as simple as updating your DNS and FTP settings. I've had my site hacked in the past, which is whey I am resistant to using a CMS. It's possible Blogger could be hacked. But I have not ever seen any news of such a thing in all the years I've been a user.

What I especially like about Blogger is that it easily and almost natively integrates with YouTube and other Google products. And there is a decent mobile app for it too. This somewhat streamlines your content production a little. So, it's not too difficult to make some money on Blogger.

In terms of cost-effectiveness, I find Blogger on par with Web 3. That is to say that there is no cost for hosting on either platform. They both have the advantage over other platforms that charge you for hosting.

Comparison:


In terms of ease of use, I think both platforms are relatively simple. However, Web 3 is a bit more challenging up front as you have to create your keys and keep them safe to be able to access your account. If you lose your keys, your recovery options are limited, if at all possible. However, once you're set up, it is rather routine just like using Blogger.

Blogger offers some ability to customize the appearance of your blog. The options are limited. But even within the limitations there are countless things you can move around to make your blog somewhat unique. Web 3 is not very customizable. You are sharing a front end with thousands of users. Unless you work out a way to create your own blog front end using the blockchain as your database, you won't have options for custom work.

Web 3 offers a built-in audience. As you're all sharing a platform, other bloggers will see your post in the feed. Similarly, you have a ton of options for reading and commenting. Web 3 is a lot more like social media than a blogging platform. But there is at lease one project that has worked out a way to make hosting on Web 3 more of a personal blog experience.

Blogger, on the other hand, has great SEO. However, both platforms are available to the same world wide web. Anybody with a link can visit either platform to view your posts.

As for monetization, Web 3 has the potential for good monetization if the underlying cryptocurrency gains traction. And even then, your earnings are dependent on other platform users to upvote. Anybody reading your posts who is not already on the platform can't comment or upvote. And then there is the matter of figuring out your taxes from getting paid in crypto and converting to hard cash.

Blogger is the better monetized option. Once you have sufficient content, your blog can show Adsense ads, which pays out when a minimum of $100 threshold is reached. So long as there is some engaging content posted consistently, you'll get some traffic.

One of the drawbacks of Hive is that the community discourages frequent posting. They do this by downvoting your content if they have the sense you are milking the platform for rewards. There are many creators on that platform who will decline rewards in appeasement. At most, you could get away with two or three posts per day, which is plenty for most. However, if you were particularly busy on one day, you could not post more than that without running the risk of some hard downvotes.

With this in mind, I think that Blogger is underutilized as a personal social medium. You could simply post an image and a caption. You could write short posts like on X. You could post a feed of your YouTube channel. Blogger does not necessarily have to be for only blogging. You're not going to get nuked for not following a posting format.

Use Cases


Ultimately, if you are going to be writing controversial stuff, I'd suggest that you use a Web3 platform. You might get some ugly comments. But you can't be shut down. At worst, you would get downvoted, which negates any rewards. But you can still say your piece.

But if you're not into controversial topics, I think Blogger would do fine. The odds of being demonetized for a personal blog or a travel blog are rather low.

On the other hand, if you are into branding and other serious business use of your blog, neither platform will do. The perception and reality is that you hardly see any high-earning blogs hosted on Blogger or Hive, if any.

I think where a Blogger account could shine is to use it as a social medium for your interest. Use it as a central repository of your content so that it can get shared, including links back to your Hive blog.

Conclusion

 
I don't think I can draw any conclusion here between using Blogger and using a Web 3 platform. They each serve a different need. Web 3 was an effort to feel secure that what I write, all that effort, would not be taken down because something suddenly became offensive to somebody somewhere. Both platforms only cost me time.

I suppose if I were to choose between the two, I would go with Hive, the Web 3 platform for its built-in audience. It is nice to have others with whom to interact. I suppose that is the attraction of social media, Web 2.0 platforms.

But if I'm going to be a bit more obnoxious about posting, I suppose Blogger would be the better platform as there are no watchers waiting to slap you down for posting too often.

Call to Action


Would you like to dive deeper into any of these sections or explore additional angles? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

Check out Hive.blog to see if that sort of platform suits you.

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