Are widgets necessary or needed for blogs?

I do not see the need for widgets. I just have my blog, and I have Foxy Tunes when I play my music, and I do have the links, but none of those silly gadgets that mess up the whole show. Besides I want people to read my blog, not look at the widgets and say, "wow I can now balance my budget with that calculator there!" It might seem like fun, but isn't having widgets, apart from one necessary to a site, like a calculator on a "how to save money" page, rather making the observer not to take you more seriously?

hi DuoMaxwell,i think they are not the absolute necessity for your blog and surely anyone can skip them..but if we have them they do add some extra spice to our blog and make it more interesting and happening than simply having our content..you are right it makes it difficult to load your blog if you have too much of them on your blog so its better to limit them in number so as to avoid your readers getting upset by the slower loading of your blog..and this can also result in decrease in number of your blog visits too if the condition gets worse..if someone puts them for monetizing their blog then i think they should keep those things in mind too to prefer visitors over the money they will be collecting..as you know excess of anything is bad and this applies to blog widgets too..these days it has become more like a fashion than to have them as per the requirements and i have seen many of my friends noticing decrease in number of visitors who used to visit their blogs regularly due to slower loading caused by these widgets..so its always better to use them with care and with in limits..

only if you want to earn some money

I only use a few widgets and those are from blog directories so I can get more traffic to my blog. I don't want my blog to look too cluttered with them (that might be too late haha). Of course they aren't needed but they can be helpful. I just don't want to use too many.