As one of those "old web" guys who has been blogging for almost two decades, I understand this anguish over the open web. I've seen the rise and fall of alternative like app.net and despite what others may think, micro.blog's success isn't ensured. The lack of diversity, both cultural and economic, is perhaps why the "relatively tech fluent (and likely, financially affluent) community of tech/apple oriented users" ignore micro.blog. It's one of the reasons why, despite having backed the Kickstarter project, I chose to let my hosted micro.blog lapse and use micro.blog more like Twitter. Both are free but Twitter is less of an echo chamber.
I visit micro.blog only a few times a month now. The discovery feed is boring.
I've documented my issues with micro.blog in several blog posts. I don't expect anything to change in the near term.
- Community Norms?
- Thoughts on micro.blog
- Micro.blog and IndieWeb
- You Can't Start the Revolution from the Web Country Club
- Going Full Indie
Others have voiced similar complaints.
I prefer the approach advocated by the IndieWeb and have also written about the issue of discovery for independent blogs who don't use social media.