# Backlog #0: A Rant A personal story about almost giving up and getting a fresh start. Welcome to my new project, Backlog. - URL: https://blog.lsantos.dev/en/backlog-0-a-rant/ - Published: 2024-11-09 - Updated: 2026-07-16 - Section: opinion - Tags: backlog-newsletter, opinion - Language: en - Author: Lucas Santos --- Hey! You haven't seen me around here in a while, right? And for a good reason. This is a new newsletter I started, it's going to come out every two weeks and it's going to focus on more personal content, things I like to write about.This edition is text only, but the idea is to mix in images and other interesting things down the line. I wanted to send this email now (let's call it a pre-newsletter) to tell you a story, the story of how I got tired of everything I was doing and decided to start over. A story I've wanted to tell you for many, many years. It's going to sound strange at first, but stay with me until the end, I hope this message changes your life the way it changed mine. ## Creating content is exhausting I've been creating content since 2014. That's 10 years publishing on the internet: articles, videos, podcasts, talks, guest spots on other channels, more than 2000 pieces of content in total. Creating content is, at the same time, my way of documenting what I learn and my way of giving back to the community that gave me so much. I can say, without hesitating, that I wouldn't have gotten where I am today if it weren't for creating content. But content creation is a lot more than just writing a text, putting together an article, making a video. What you see there is the final result of many hours of work and, sometimes, years of research and experience. Many of my articles on my [blog](/) took hours to write, some, like the one on [RSA encryption](/criptografia-assimetrica-com-rsa/), took days! Between researching something, summarizing, checking, writing, checking again, and finally trying to find a way to make the content catchy while still educational. ### The CLT Creator® challenge All of this while holding down a formal job, I'm the famous _"CLT Content Creator"_ (Brazil's version of a full time salaried employee), meaning I **love** what I do, but it doesn't pay the bills. I'd love to create content full time but, unlike what a lot of people think, unless you're huge, **creating content isn't all that profitable**. The predictability of a job is still necessary in most cases. Since I do most of it alone, I have to wear a lot of hats: business owner, designer (yes, every graphic you see here was made by me), social media manager, marketing, and more. The work doesn't end at publishing, you still have to promote it, reach more people... but for what? ## Vanity metrics As much as we say we don't care about follower counts, likes, or anything like that, the reality is that these numbers are necessary to give you some sense of how you're impacting people. I'd love to hide all the metrics and focus only on the feedback in the comments, but those are rare. People don't interact with content that much, so metrics end up being our only way to gauge whether the content is working, whether we need to change our approach. And, as a content creator, the business side matters too. Brands and advertisers look at these metrics to know, on average, how many people they can reach by running a product or an ad with you. > Ugh, but ads are bad, why do there have to be ads? I agree ads can be a problem, but they're often the only way to balance time spent against financial return. The tricky part is that a lot of advertisers end up trying to interfere with the content, something I've thankfully never had to accept. So does that mean I only create content because I want something in return? No, actually that's the whole point of this newsletter. It's a rebellion, not against advertisers, but against social media and the way our content gets made these days. ## My quiet rebellion I'm writing this edition at 1:10 in the morning, staring at the word counter thinking "I think this is getting too long", but the truth is this email is going to be as long as I want it to be. This is my newsletter, and I'm going to say what I want to say, for as long as I want to say it. I'm doing this not to make money or get famous, I'm doing this because **I love doing this, and I want to share it with you**! ### Fast and shallow The current landscape rewards content that's fast and shallow. Social media conditioned us this way because short content means more time scrolling the feed, seeing more ads, generating more profit for the platforms. Now we have ten second experts on reels sharing topics (sometimes interesting ones) so stripped down that a lot gets lost, all in the name of chasing whatever gets more views (sometimes at the cost of the truth). Over time this wore me down so much that I thought about quitting content creation entirely, more than once, because I love writing (as you can tell), and I write a lot, with detail, because I forget things and my own blog is a resource I go back to as much as my readers do. I don't like shallowness, but the current model didn't just shift toward short, shallow content, it also shifted toward prioritizing video over text, which pushes us to keep creating (because videos aren't simple to edit...) ## What's coming? And that's the story of this newsletter. This is a place where I'm going to write a lot, share what I think, have opinions (sometimes strong ones), stir up discussions, and invite you to comment and take part with me! But, above all: **I'm going to write what I like**. Here's what you'll find: - Computing history - Book summaries and opinions - Interesting personal experiences - Reflections on technology and beyond - All that content from my "mental **backlog**" that I've always wanted to share - Suggestions are welcome, just send them over on my [social media](https://twitter.lsantos.dev) In the next edition, I'll bring you a topic that's been fascinating me lately: **the history of computing**! More specifically the story of the very first computer ever, to keep up our tradition of fresh starts 😜 I hope you enjoy this new space. See you next week!