I think it's probably accurate to say that the vast majority of writers throughout history were writing for an extremely tiny or nonexistent audience. My favorite example of this is Nietzsche, who basically had zero readership during most of his life, beyond a few close friends, and even had to personally pay to get his books published. He only posthumously became one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century.

So while I do worry about AI's impact on blogging/writing/etc., I do think to some extent, you either love the process or you don't. If you only write in order to have readers, you're in the wrong game.

There are a lot of arts that were funded for a short time in our recent history that previously were absolutely not funded at all under almost any circumstance. Centralized media created centralized stars with centralized incomes

For the vast majority of history it was all community theater, carnies, and “that guy in the square guy who knows the lute”.

Fun fact, in medieval Europe acting was considered a sin so great you could not get a Christian burial, as you were channeling the spirit of others. Realpolitik it was probably because actors were mostly queer in the cities and Roma in the countryside. What’s old is new…