[AnimalMuppet]

And sometimes it's not. Sometimes the journey is miserable, and we only do it to get to the destination.

And of the authors who think "my journey will be worth the destination, because I can really write!", some large percentage of them overestimate their ability and/or our interest level.

There was a time when people had more time to read than they had things to read. At that time, writing in a way that expanded the text made sense. But now, there's an essentially infinite amount to read, and still only 24 hours in a day. That favors getting to the point in a hurry. On the internet, you have from 5 to 30 seconds to persuade me that your thing is worth reading. If in that time you don't persuade me that you're going to deliver enough value to pay back my investment of reading your thing, I'm on to the next tab.

[Ar-Curunir]

That’s alright, not everything has to be catered to those with minimal time to read.

[AnimalMuppet]

It's not exactly minimal time to read. It's too many other options to read. If you look at the number of things that people (or at least websites) suggest I read, I've got an average of less than a minute to give each one (and maybe less than a second).

So if I'm going to read your thing, you have to pay me back more than those others are going to. You have to hold my attention more than the promise of all those other things.

But you're right that people different tastes. Some people like long-form writing. The same dynamic is still true in their choices, though - they're just using a different filter to decide what's going to pay them back the most.