In this video I explain why I genuinely think blogging is dying in 2024—not as a hobby, but as a realistic “independent side hustle blogger” primary income plan. The big issue is Google’s updates shifting visibility toward large brands and big authority platforms, plus sponsored listings taking over the most valuable searches. I show a real example using Income School’s old sites (like Camper Report) where traffic fell off a cliff, and then I walk through a keyword search where ads, sales pages, YouTube, and Pinterest sit above the independent blog result. I also talk about how AI changes the game. Google can now answer a lot of questions directly in the search results by scraping content, which means fewer clicks to websites—even for low-value queries. On top of that, Google is leaning harder into Experience, Authority, and Trust signals that are much easier for real brands and businesses to prove (reviews, maps, mentions, high-authority backlinks) than a brand-new blog. So my “do this instead” is simple and a bit boring: build a real business first, then use blogging and content marketing to grow it. Your website and blog still matter, but I’d treat them as distribution and trust-builders—while your primary income comes from real goods and services, then you diversify with affiliates, ads, sponsors, and subscriptions once you’ve built real-world authority.