Interesting topic - a couple of points from my perspective.
How does "good" have any meaning if you just interpret it as "you yourself like what you do"? To me the whole concept of "good" implies comparison with other people. And the trap there, I think, is that the better you get at any activity the more you raise the bar for yourself.
I think I'm a "good" photographer in that I can probably take better, more interesting photographs than 999 people out of 1000 - but 998 of those 1000 probably have no interest in or competence at photography so they're a meaningless yardstick. Compared to a lot of of people posting on the internet, lat alone "real" photographers, I'm no good at all
🙁.
Being a natural pessimist and prone to self-laceration I'll look at the people I'm worse than in any given field and get annoyed about it - some people would bask in the self-satisfaction of being better than the 999. Who's right?
I think the post about "flickr syndrome" is very interesting too - I used to post a lot on Pbase, and went through a phase when (for whatever reason) almost everything I posted would get a lot of comments and a few votes - which is great for the ego. But after a while I found that my self-esteem was getting unhealthily attached to the strength of response to whatever I posted that day, and also that what I posted was starting to be directly influenced by what I thought would be popular rather than what I actually liked.
That said, if nobody ever commented at all on what I posted on Pbase or here I probably would give up!
I also think the internet has an interesting effect on what people do because of "thumbnail syndrome" - i.e. the need for an image to look good as a thumbnail for anyone to notice it in the sea of new imagery uploaded every day on any of the popular sites. That works in favour of bright, oversaturated, graphic images that jump off a page of 25 other thumbnails, and against anything quieter, more complex, or in black and white.
There's a fantastic (IMHO) photographer on Pbase called Oliver Dienst (well worth a look if don't know his stuff -
http://www.pbase.com/oliverdienst/root). He does work firmly in the rangefinder tradition, all black and white and shot with Leicas, and his work always seem to get way less attention than it deserves. Is it because he doesn't spend time commenting on other people's shots? Because his shots are black and white? Because people don't "get" them? I have no idea, but it's certainly not because his photos aren't "good".
Conclusions - good is a relative concept and good and popular aren't the same thing!
