"Broad, personal, at times even philosophical takes on skiing's role in the wider scope of humanity routinely graced the digital pages of WildSnow, a plethora of words tended by a thoughtful ski mountaineer and home builder who received far more regard than compensation for a passion project begun years before the rise of influencers and the ubiquity of a monetized internet."
"As page views became sought after metrics, and the fraught nature of monetizing the web ever reared its head, the sweeping tide of a high-churn internet would come to roost not only in the online outdoor commerce sector; its revenue mechanisms would subsume the subculture's very content, sweeping magazines, websites, even independent blogs, into a gyre of conglomeration that pressed outdoor content into the service not of subscribers, but novel earning models,"
For nearly twenty years WildSnow.com occupied a prominent role within backcountry skiing culture, named for untouched powder and run by Lou Dawson. The site combined broad gear reviews, trip reports, and expansive, at times philosophical reflections on skiing's meaning, elevating human-powered steep snowriding as a pinnacle outdoor pursuit. WildSnow functioned as a passion project begun before influencer-driven monetization, earning regard without equivalent compensation. As web monetization intensified, page-view-driven revenue models and industry consolidation absorbed independent outdoor media, reshaping content toward new earning mechanisms. A rising demand for thoughtful outdoor content is emerging as a nascent counterweight.
Read at Miami Herald
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