Notes I feel that such claims about the IndieWeb not "taking off" are either stating the obvious or, if that's not the intention, completely missing the point. It's like saying that gardening hasn't taken off because most people buy their vegetables at the supermarket. The IndieWeb doesn't need to "take off" to be valuable to those who participate in it. Maintaining a personal website is about owning your digital presence, embracing creative freedom, and expressing your individuality! It's not about appealing to the masses! FeedUnfurl
NotesThe fundamental problem is that in using most modern consumer-oriented applications, we lose control of the data we share with those applications. In creating documents, writing emails, or tracking our exercise or other activities, we share data with an application thatās useful for a particular purpose, but also allow the data live in a database controlled by the applicationās owner. With the data outside of our control, it can then be restricted, lost, leaked, sold, resold, and exploited. The groups that control these databases accrue most of the benefits, and we accrue most of the costs.FeedUnfurl
NotesMy guiding principle for using BlueSky (or any platform or SaaS product for that matter) is to assume that it will go away in three years. Itāll either go bankrupt, get bought, or change its strategy to enshittify the product. You can make an argument that BlueSky has some technical protections against this (though Cory Doctorow is still skeptical about how enshittification may play out with BlueSky) but I think the heuristic above is still the right one to follow.Unfurl
NotesThe kingdom gets absorbed by another neighboring King that has no idea why people where there in the first place and starts changing the laws and everyone leaves. Example: Tumblr
There are countless tales of this happening. EVERY SINGLE EXTERNAL KINGDOM will do this to you. No matter how ācoolā or āhipā they are right now. They will let you down.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesHave a personal domain, put a CMS behind it, use that for publishing static pages, use subdomains of it for standalone services, and register new domains only when you need to. I think this kind of strategy is inherent in the idea of having āyour own domainā, and a lot of people follow it to a greater or lesser degree, but I wanted to spell it out fully to make it clear to myself how I would deal with different circumstances.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesIn my last post, I spoke about the differences between the POSSE and PESOS blogging styles and why itās important. Today, Iām going to show you how I actually implement this with my website.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesThe Twitter meltdown made me realize something important: Iām a seriously prolific content creator. And Iāve been giving away all that content free to a platform that not only profits from it but treats me like garbage unfairly when it comes to sharing said profits. Meaning, they donāt share a dime. When I downloaded my Twitter archive, it hit me like a ton of bricks that most of that content was not sitting in my website, so they could just disappear if a billionaire decides to cut me off from the platform. FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesBest known for puncturing blockchain/crypto hype with her Web3 Is Going Just Great project, writer/researcher Molly White believes a better web is possible. Launched two years ago, her Citation Needed newsletter covers ātech world without all the boosterism,ā while her latest project tracks the crypto industryās attempts to influence the 2024 elections.EmbedUnfurl
NotesHave you ever wanted to track your movements, sleep, what you eat, who you spend time with, and all sorts of other personal data? In this talk I'll describe the tools I've been able to successfully use to track aspects of my life.Unfurl
NotesIn reality, all of these services make money from your content. Either they serve advertisements next door to your content or they are targeting advertisements towards you, specifically, depending on whatever it is that you are sounding off about on these services.Unfurl