> There is value in exploring obvious concepts when you’ve thought about them for longer, maybe researched what others before you had to say on the matter, and you can highlight and improve on all of that.
Respectfully, I think you are wholly missing the point. Running a link along and adding commentary to what other people have written is just social media, it is not at all the same thing as reflecting on a concept thoroughly. We’re discussing two different concepts.
I have a link blog which is links plus commentary. Each post takes 10-30 minutes to write. They're exactly like social media, though I try to add something new rather than just broadcast other people's content. https://simonwillison.net/blogmarks/
I recently added "notes" which are effectively my link blog without a link. Very social media! I use those for content that doesn't deserve more than a couple of paragraphs: https://simonwillison.net/notes/
And then there are "entries". That's my long form content, each taking one to several hours (or occasionally more, eg ny annual LLM roundups). Those are the pieces of long-form writing where I aim to "reflect on a concept thoroughly": https://simonwillison.net/entries/
That's exactly what I try to do.
I wrote more about my approach to that here: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/22/link-blog/#trying-to-a...