Resurgence
a revival of sorts
This place is making a resurgence. by this place I mean the newsletter. it's got a new flashy domain too: shreshth.xyz
If you go look at the last post1, it happened to be a while ago in the middle of 2022, we are now in early 2024. A lot has happened since then. I have grown a lot. saw both the beauty the world has to offer and the lessons it has to also teach.
some of you had the luxury of following slices of this journey on my Instagram stories. though it's coming to an end. atleast in its current form.
instagram stories
In college years I became actively present on Instagram because of its widespread adoption by peers. It looked lucrative socially to be there and I made it a goal to post atleast one story post a day, it garnered views so it made sense to keep posting things there plus it helped me remain relevant in that college community.
since 2023, I don’t think it's valuable anymore to be present on IG.
the platform has changed and it isn’t what it used to be and what role I wanted it to play.
Though I kept on posting due to sunk cost fallacy of being on platform since 2015. I will deep dive on my take on ig in some other post and why it will have a similar arc to facebook.
Also one fine day, I opened my screen time page which shocked me to my core. I quietly decided to leave Instagram, deleted the app and observe the effects it had on me. the results after 14 days were:
1. I was feeling back in my element.
2. Got more clarity on things and was able to focus better.
3. Absense of doom scrolling bought less mental stimulation and less mental fatigue
though I lost the major channel of putting my word out.
why this place, why now ?
Internet should be used as a leverage machine not as a consumption space, a place you come to talk to people, build software stuff, learn new things and see what the world is upto; not consume automated targeted ads every 2 minutes.
so I made a quick list of all places I want to build my online presence longterm.
the idea was that these should be spaces that support users in ways that they aren’t the product themselves.
so top canidates from the list that I want to focus on.
1. Substack
2. Twitter / X
3. Youtube
firstly,
all the above platforms give the option to monetise content once crossing a particular threshold. you aren’t consuming ads if you are a premium user.
Also the value proposition of being a creator on these platfroms is very high at the moment and in terms of increasing surface area of luck.
secondly,
I personally found a lack of a single place I could point to where my things are put up. So the plan is to put ideas here clearly for posterity and future reference.2
thirdly,
long form content is an easy way to attract those whose consumption palette in reading is still retained while detracting those who can’t focus long enough to read till now even.
conclusion
The goal is to be consistent in this place. most likely share things I am working on, my takes and opinions on things, things i scour on find interesting and tales to tell. I expect the frequency of it to be minmum once a week.
I believe that every format needs to be mastered. be it written word (tweets or long form newsletter), images (both graphics or sensor generated) or videos (reels and yt). This is an infinite game and should be played like one too.
getting word out on all these formats is necessary and every format has its own network effects which you can eventually play with.
I have built my little corner on internet 5+ times since 2014 but as of 2024 all of these little text galleries are in shambles, unmaintainable state. focused too much on making the website than focusing on the content itself but this time the focus is purely just on words and I have a feeling it would work out.