Why Does Everyone Seem to Hate the Sidebar?

Do you know what has drawn me back to Wordpress on more than one occasion? The ability to have a sidebar. When I look around at all the different blogging platforms, outside of Wordpress and Blogger, most of them don't feature a sidebar. Why is that?

I guess the easy answer is a sidebar clutters up a small screen, although I've seen sidebars pop in and out for years on Wordpress. I just have never understood why there isn't more of an outcry for them. I mean, sure, tags/categories are great for finding similar content (and I personally love how these are featured before any posts on Scribbles), but it doesn't beat a category list on the side of a page. I cannot tell you how many times I've looked over a sidebar and been like, "Oh heck yea, lemme read this guy's video game reviews or his random series of posts about some forgotten scream queen." A sidebar works not just for navigation, but also for exploration. It shows the readers what your site has to offer with just a quick glance.

Another benefit of the sidebar is the archives. I can quickly see how long a site has been going, whether it is updated consistently, and with a couple of expandable lists, I can see what type of content is posted during certain times of the year. Often, I can browse a site's entire history just from the sidebar without having to click through page after page.

But yea... I'm sure we've all opened an older Blogger layout and fought with that unresponsive theme, but I still don't think this is a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I say bring back sidebars... then again, I also miss the sidebars on Reddit, and no one seems to care about that anymore either.