I was listening to a podcast recently where someone pointed out something curious: machines have been better at playing chess than humans for three decades now, and nobody cares. People still watch human chess players. If anything, chess is experiencing a renaissance.

I don’t know anyone who wants to watch robots play chess. But I know plenty of people who love watching humans play. I’m not a big chess player myself (heck, I could hardly win any game), but I catch myself watching matches on YouTube.

The reason is that the game is way more than moving pieces on a board. There’s a background story to every player and the match is a truly human experience where people don’t only compete against an opponent but also against themselves. That’s what makes it so interesting, not the fact that there’s an algorithm which has 3646 Elo. Humans can still contribute!

And I think it’s the same with writing.

Everyone wants to read personal thoughts from real human beings, but no one writes them anymore. What we get instead is slop, and that’s hardly a good read. The moment I notice I’m reading autogenerated text, I care less.

That’s why I keep writing. My personal blog is a weird mix of ramblings about reviewing code, the best programmers I know, and random thoughts.

But you know what? People are reading it and from time to time I get an email from someone who found one of my articles helpful.

Time and again, when I talk to friends, they share the same experience. My friend Thomas wrote his first article about his Experience with Atlassian and many people found it helpful and reached out. And even if no one does, writing is a joyful hobby and it helps me clear my thoughts.

I believe there has rarely been a better time to start writing.