[dna_polymerase]

> [..] I really miss the yesteryears where everyone had a blog and linked out to great content.

This. Not only for SEO but in general I'd love to see the sources to stuff I read, especially in news articles, which often do not link to anything. It would also be great for content discovery as a reader.

[zo1]

Doesn't google penalize websites for having too-many outgoing links? That would explain why you're seeing so few links to sources.

[nickreese]

Google doesn't penalize for too many outbound links, but SEO is a zero sum game. Being conservative or even stingy with links is higher reward strategy than being generous.