The tyranny of the op-ed

If you follow me on social media, you probably know that I occasionally vent about the comically lopsided incentives for authors who publish content on the internet. I normally try to keep these rants off the blog, spare for a short piece back in 2024 — but it’s been bugging me long enough that I should probably state the complaint more coherently.It’s not too insightful to say that online discourse has a strong bias toward ephemeral, low-effort content. Complaints about this are easy to dismiss as simple saltines: it’s akin to me getting upset that you don’t appreciate the operatic voice of Angela Gheorghiu. Sucks to be me, the market has spoken; most people prefer to listen to Taylor Swift.We could end here, but my thesis is that the rebuttal is too reductionist: on the internet, Angela and Taylor are closer to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.🙚 🙘To illustrate, let me offer a personal anecdote: from 2010 to 2018, I ran a reasonably popular, infosec-centric blog. On that blog, I would often…