If anything, all the spam and lack of real discussion that shows up on my daily feeds has encouraged me to search for smaller authors and bloggers, who I find are more insightful anyways. Not all hope is lost!
I have found no good way to smaller authors. I've seen a few web rings that give me cool but completely random websites. HN is the best I've got so far.
A curated and subscribable list of smaller authors categorised by area, where the sites aren't wall-gardened and laiden with trackers, would seem to fit the bill.
I’ve found a lot of new authors via Substack, which is interesting in the context of blogs, as newsletters largely predate blogs, but never caught on for most people in the way that blogs did, but now with apps, push notifications, and social networking components and recommendation algorithms, newsletters are making a big comeback.
Also, newsletters and blogs are not so different in the end, as prior newsletter editions are easily available on modern platforms like Substack and others, while also allowing for easy monetization of any or all posts, a feature popularized by Patreon that has percolated through the industry.
You might also look into so-called starter packs, a new-ish feature of Bluesky, which, along with Mastodon, has been another new source of authors for me lately.
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