[victorstanciu]

It is! For the latest incarnation of my blog I forwent comments in favor of a simple mailto: link at the bottom of each post which prefills the email subject with the post's title. I've had significantly fewer interactions with readers this way, but they've also been much more meaningful and insightful. There is a performative nature to public forums of any kind--and HN is not immune to this--that stifles any genuine discussion, or drowns it in a sea of attention-seekers.

Yes, I am aware of the hypocritical irony of complaining about online comments in an online comment.

[famahar]

This is a simple and great idea. I do something similar with my website. My newsletter is just a list of emails I have in a .txt file. I email to everyone when I write a blog post and we chat through email exchanges about it. The interactions feel more in-depth, and as you say, less performative as the exchange is just between us. Now I'm thinking of adding an email link at the end of every blog post with the blog title.

[a-french-anon]

Personally, I wouldn't consider a blog without a newsfeed usable, newsletters are the wrong tool IMO (select push vs pull available to everyone without maintenance).

(In Ballmer's voice) RSS! RSS! RSS!

[benoliver999]

That's exactly what I do and it works great.