Producers and Consumers
Here's how it worked in the past: some people use time and energy to produce for others, in exchange for some currency; some people buy these products using the same currency. Most people are both producers and consumers: we produce make what we do best and buy what we don't.
In recent years, though, that's not completely the case. When we watch YouTube videos, or Instagram reels, we're not producing anything, and we're not paying anything, either.
Or perhaps we're paying in a currency that is not so inherently quantifiable - attention. But our attention is still limited: there's only a certain amount of things that we can concentrate on in a day. Producers of media content are trying everything to gain our attention, and we distribute our attention by deciding what to do or watch or read.
So what should we read? When choosing products, we tend to purchase from more reputable sellers, or products that a lot of people buy, or products with high ratings. And if we're careful enough, we don't just want products with high ratings: we care about the legitimacy of the rating; in particular, we care about the people that rated. If a professional says the wine is good, then it probably is; but if a child says the wine is good, we would hold our doubts.
Similarly, when consuming media content, we should prioritize reading books that have been already reviewed for you by professional editors and publishers. Videos from established YouTube channels with millions of subscribers who have reviewed it for you could be valuable, too, but watching TikTok videos that sometimes only have a handful of views just seems like a bad investment to make with you attention.
And lastly, just like how in the real world we are both producers and consumers, perhaps we shouldn't just be the consumers of media content: we can be producers as well, and blogging is one way to do it. Even if you're not monetizing off it, it's still nice to organize your thoughts into some medium and voice them out sometimes.