[snazz]

In my experience, that's true of many specific hobbies--bicycling, sailing, gardening, etc. It's especially true of hobbies where purchasing ever-more-expensive things isn't so important. Hobbies like cars have more magazine-like and shopping-mall-like sites compared to less consumerist ones (although bikes can be like that too).

[Mediterraneo10]

I wouldn't say that this is still true of bicycling, at least not bicycle touring. The amount of standalone blogs in that hobby have plunged drastically now that people choose to simply upload photos to Instagram, and what few blogs exist are often buried in Google search results. One can see that standalone forums are emptying out, reduced to mainly middle-aged members, as younger generations turn to Reddit or Facebook for all their discussion of the hobby. Within the bikepacking segment, Bikepacking.com (which presents itself as a community resource but is essentially just one big advertisement for its sponsors) has a chokehold on the community.

I was fortunate to get into bicycle touring at a time when standalone blogs were easy to find, some of them were masterfully written, and there was not yet the mercenary desire to monetize one’s content and become an "influencer". The web of 2020 is very different, and because Google deranks older content, a lot of newbies in the hobby today won't even become aware of the former state of affairs even if much of that content remains just as relevant today.

[snazz]

I can see that. At the same time, sites like Sheldon Brown's and some of the older MTB forums still rank well in Google searches.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

and ironically, these changes make it harder to sell used gear. a site like crazyguyonabike.com had (has) excellent bike-touring focused used gear ads, but who reads that stuff now? i have some touring gear that i've been trying to sell for 4-5 years ... it was never going to be easy, but it's now a lot harder.