[gabrielgoh]

i disagree with the first point. I'm working on a distill article with Chris and Shan, and the major draw for this has been impact. It seems very plausible that an article on distill has the potential to reach a far broader (and different) audience than a paper in even a top tier mathematical journal like SIAM would.

I won't deny the time commitment needed for a distill article is not trivial - it is far more work than a technical blog. But in terms of a pure tradeoff of time per publication, the calculus makes sense. Most of the work of research distillation and synthesis is already part of the research process, and writing a distill article is just a matter of putting it all of down on paper. Doing research is a far more time consuming and less predictable process.

[j2kun]

I meant incentive with respect to career advancement, in the narrow sense of what metrics hiring and tenure committees use to make decisions.

[syllogism]

To get a grad student or post-doc position, you're really just trying to convince a specific human that you're smart, useful, and to some extent personable. Metrics are a good argument for that, but having them know who you are before you apply is even better.

This applies especially if you write the distillation targeted at the lab you want to hire you.