> 1) a tech person, 2) a professor, 3) a grad student or 4) a freelance writer.
AND/OR!!
> Why must this theory be true? Because only these kind of people have the kind of free time to devote to a blog
You forgot the 5th & 6th "and/or" categories: no friends; not dating anybody. ("And/or", I stress. It's like bridge -- add up the points, and you get the answer.)
> The rest of us with real jobs have too much to do.
It's your own fault for becoming a lawyer, dude. Each of us had the choice to make the same mistake...
-Magik
Nah, I don't like the simple pat answer. The availability of free time is a factor, but not the answer. I think if you looked at how much TV many of those people with "real jobs" watch, your explanation that it's that they don't have enough free time sinks without a trace.
Tech people are successful because this is a new and sometimes finicky medium, and people care about the gadgets and the software. We have control over every aspect of the appearance of our material in a way that we've never had when we publish in journals and books, so this stuff suddenly has more appeal.
Professors and grad students and writers charge in and do the blogging game because it's a natural fit. What do we do much of the day? We sit and read and think and spend a lot of time plugged into a computer (same with tech people). We're comfortable with every step of the process. So when tools like various flavor of blogware become available, we just adopt them without a hiccup and start exploring. Knock down a few barriers, and we end up doing what is really a natural extension of our activities before blogging became so simple.
Someone like my mother, who is a retired factory worker, has far more free time than I do. She doesn't blog. She wouldn't, I think, consider it at all interesting, because this kind of face-to-the-computer thing has never been part of her life. She'd rather read and paint and play with her grandkids.