I don’t think papers were set up for wide distribution at all. Like, how would Newton, Darwin and Maxwell have published 10+ papers and distributed them all to their target audience?
Papers and books are aimed at different audiences. Papers are aimed at a small community of experts which has a lot shared epistemic prerequisites, so the average contribution is short. Books are aimed at larger audiences.
The modern internet enables you to write in small batches to both audiences (or any audience) really. I am more talking about the ability to write things like blogpost series, or have people follow your Youtube channel, or follow your Twitter, etc. (Like, I am not saying Youtube and Twitter are bastions of intellectual progress, but they enable distribution mechanisms that I think generally outperform previous ones).
I don’t think papers were set up for wide distribution at all. Like, how would Newton, Darwin and Maxwell have published 10+ papers and distributed them all to their target audience?
Papers and books are aimed at different audiences. Papers are aimed at a small community of experts which has a lot shared epistemic prerequisites, so the average contribution is short. Books are aimed at larger audiences.
The modern internet enables you to write in small batches to both audiences (or any audience) really. I am more talking about the ability to write things like blogpost series, or have people follow your Youtube channel, or follow your Twitter, etc. (Like, I am not saying Youtube and Twitter are bastions of intellectual progress, but they enable distribution mechanisms that I think generally outperform previous ones).