Blogs -- Trees falling and Esse est percipi

A blog is the proverbial tree in the woods...are you, the blogger, content knowing the tree fell, or do you argue it only exists when someone has heard it? Berkeley argued Esse est percipi or "to be is to be perceived."
I don't know if I've decided that for my blog yet...the argument is essentially, is your blog a diary you leave out to be read or an online opinion column you need/hope is read. In the first case you really don't care about visitors, while in the latter you do. If you do the question becomes, what is the value of all that commentary? The recent social phenomenon of the web has inundated us with "amateur experts"--or put another way, those who know nothing but know it all.
As a writer, I enjoy the concept of a blog because my brain engages differently when I write (versus thought or speech). I also like the idea of turning somebody on to a writer, a musician, a thought, an article, a poem--whatever--that they may not have known before. I know I have picked up all of those and more at other blogs. Still, I don't know if I care about visits or comments--or is that self deception? If I don't care, why post to a public place at all, why not just write a journal?
I think ultimately blogs are representative of everyone's desire to be heard more than a desire for community. Community is an open forum where there is no leader, no namesake, just a threaded discussion (as painful as these can be), not a blog where One starts all dialogs and you are then free to respond to One. But at least it encourages discourse. My biggest lament for American Democracy is that we have moved from debate to hardcore, my-way-or-the-highway ideological points-of-view. Sad, too, because you can be no stronger in your ideas than when you crave and welcome challenges that shake your ideas to their cores.
What's the point? Hell if I know...I'm the One and I don't need no stinkin' point...but I think I'm trying to decide if I need to hear that tree fall or not.