I relate to this. I'm writing whatever scratches my itch, and most of the value comes from the writing itself.

But, of course it'd be nice if some people read what I wrote? When I post to reddit or hn I get good traffic and some discussion, but that has all the problems you discuss.

There are probably only a few dozen people who enjoy regularly reading this sort of content, they probably write too. I'd love to find them and start a private chat server where we could read each other's pieces.