Blogs are cool.
The whole setting up a website and justifying the cost for a public log/journal...Not so much. It's still clunky and costly enough that it pushes people to platforms handling all the tech backend for them, whether nonprofit or for profit. I think if enough of the technical side were made less cumbersome (and this is from someone that's okay with tech jank), then the financial costs wouldn't be as much of a factor for many since for modest sites they're already rather low.
Although if I'm overestimating site setup stuff, I'd love to read how. All the research I've done has been somewhat discouraging when it comes to handling hosting a site yourself (i.e. security concerns, traffic handling, etc.).