[icefox]

It could be as simple as 95% of people expected some sort of reward for blogging. This could be ads from traffic, comments saying how smart you are or just tons of hits to stroke your ego.

I have a half dozen blogs for different things, my favorite is this one where I post my crazy ideas so I stop myself from actually implementing them and can come back to them later if I still like the idea a week/month later http://ideasfrommydreams.blogspot.com/

In the six years I have had it there has been a total of 3301 page views and maybe five comments and I am ok with that because that isn't where it provides me with value. If comments or page views mattered I would have abandoned this blog years ago.

[mol2103]

Ha! That blog is an awesome idea. So may ideas left to die (or...live on?) - I can completely relate...believe me. If you ever wanted guest contributors to THAT, I think there are probably a few others who can relate who read HN.

[icefox]

Hmm interesting idea. If anyone is interested in guest blogging on a blog with such "high traffic" shoot me an email. Or I could spin up an ideaplanet (like http://planetqt.org/) to aggregate blogs of such caliber.

[aw3c2]

I am one of your feed subscribers for 1-2 years I think and I am happy every time there is a new post.

[diminish]

i am sure 95% of school time diaries were also abandoned.. i abandoned mine at primary school.

[noarchy]

I do wonder how many Moleskines are sold today that have more than a few pages used, if that?

Blogs and diaries are a great example of what may be a bigger trend: people often begin projects with high hopes, but due to a lack of a clear vision and/or an overestimation of their long-term motivation, it fizzles.