You’re conflating two separate questions:

1. Would 10M programmers writing 10M blogs become better programmers? and:

2. Would 10M programmers trying to find the time to read 10M programming blogs maintain their productivity, much less become better programmers?

Perhaps there’s a benefit to writing a blog even if few or even no people read it.

Why not? If we were manually filtering all these blogs, then of course not.

But we're not. We have google. It doesn't matter how many blogs there are as long as you are not re-hashing solved problems that have been explained thoroughly.

That, however, is the exact problem; most blogs are simple rehashes of the same things that have already been said. One could argue that this very article is a prime example of why someone shouldn't have (or rather, doesn't need) a blog. It isn't an attack against the quality of the writing itself, but the reality is that there's little of value because everything there has already been said countless times before.

Depends on the purpose of the blog. I maintain a blog for two reasons. One, writing about problems and their solutions as if I'm explaining them to someone else is a great way to solidify the concepts in one's mind (similar to rubber-duck debugging[1]). Two, having an active blog is a signal to potential employers that you're active in the ecosystem. Even if someone is rehashing the same old topics in their posts, seeing how they think and how well they write can be a useful indicator.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

Those are both reasons why it is in your interest to write a blog. They are not reasons why someone might want to actually read your blog (short of prospective employers).

It's interesting that this is the focus.

So all writing of fiction is pointless because everything is just a reworking of previously used tropes?

Unless it's the exact same solution, I think there is always something to be gained.

Fiction is read for the fun of reading a different take on the same basic tropes. Most programming blog posts are not read for even remotely similar reasons.

At the risk of sounding trite, so? Is any of what you just said a problem we should be worried about or a sign of something bad?

I don't think the point has to do with good blogs getting lost in the noise. I think the point is, if every programmer had a blog, how many of them would be any good, and how many would actually get read?

Well, considering the first (and IMAO foremost) reason for having a blog was for self-learning, I'd say people actually reading the blogs is secondary - a happy bonus.

If people reading posts is a "happy bonus", why make anything public? I do shitloads of self-learning, but I don't publicize the vast majority of it.

The primary purpose of publishing material to a wider audience should have something to do with said audience. It could be publicizing yourself. It could be a desire to help people. It could be simple narcissism. Whatever the reason, it drives the decision to publish rather than keep the material as simply a personal journal.

Because as the author of the article stated, learning by "teaching others" is one of the best ways to learn.

In order to teach others, people have to read the blog. Furthermore, in order to get the additional benefits from teaching others you need to interact with them. Writing a blog post that no one comments on is no more beneficial to your learning than writing a note to yourself in vim.

That is something you and the other disagree on. If you approach the subject matter as if you are trying to teach it to someone else, then your approach will be more thoughtful and more thorough than if you just want to learn it. Basically, it's a way to trick yourself into being more thoughtful in your learning.

If you have loads of self-control and dedication, by all means write yourself notes in vim and study them. For the rest of us mere mortals, it can help for learning if you are pretending to do something else (i.e. "teaching").