Pour a foundation for your own silo or home.
This is a terrific presentation from Paul. He gives a history lesson and then focuses on what makes the indie web such a powerful idea (hint: it’s not about specific technologies).
Thanks to the mistrust of big tech, the creation of better tools for developers, and the weird and wonderful creativity of ordinary people, we’re seeing an incredibly unlikely comeback: the web is thriving again.
Smart analysis from Anil, though I’m not sure I’d agree with his emphasis on tools and frameworks—it’s the technology built into browsers that has really come along in leaps and bounds, allowing people to do more with less code.
But then there’s this:
So if we have the tech, then why hasn’t it happened already? The biggest thing that may be missing is just awareness of the modern web’s potential. Unlike the Facebooks and Googles of the world, the open, creative web doesn’t have a billion-dollar budget for promoting itself. Years of control from the tech titans has resulted in the conventional wisdom that somehow the web isn’t “enough”, that you have to tie yourself to proprietary platforms if you want to build a big brand or a big business.
True! Anil also points to an act of rebellion and resistance:
Get your own site going, though, and you’ll have a sustainable way of being in control of your own destiny online.
Obviously, no one does this, I recognize this is a very niche endeavor, but the art and craft of maintaining a homepage, with some of your writing and a page that’s about you and whatever else over time, of course always includes addition and deletion, just like a garden — you’re snipping the dead blooms. I do this a lot. I’ll see something really old on my site, and I go, “you know what, I don’t like this anymore,” and I will delete it.
But that’s care. Both adding things and deleting things. Basically the sense of looking at something and saying, “is this good? Is this right? Can I make it better? What does this need right now?” Those are all expressions of care. And I think both the relentless abandonment of stuff that doesn’t have a billion users by tech companies, and the relentless accretion of garbage on the blockchain, I think they’re both kind of the antithesis, honestly, of care.
You might not think this is a big deal, and maybe it’s not, but I love the idea behind the indie web: a people-focused alternative to the corporate web. Seeing everything you’ve ever linked to in one place really drives home how much of the web’s content, made by individuals, is under corporate control and identity.
A thorough run-down of the whys and wherefores of being part of the indie web, from Chris.
The web is what we make it.
Write for yourself.
Tinkering with my website and getting inspired at Indie Web Camp Brighton.
A collection of hyperlinks to collections of hyperlinks.
How I use my website.