3 ms·

Easy for us. I can spin up a create react app, one of those minimalist CSS frameworks, netlify and I have a site in about 15 minutes. But take the average joe

Easy for us. I can spin up a create react app, one of those minimalist CSS frameworks, netlify and I have a site in about 15 minutes. But take the average joe that doesn't know about these tools, they don't know about netlify, CSS or HTML for that matter. For them it's a whole lot easier to create an account.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
But it's still easier than it has ever been to create their own website. There are video tutorials with step by step instructions. People just don't want to. Which is okay, people are free to allocate their time to different interests.
IgorPartola 6y ago
You just repeated my point. Look, if 25 years ago 100k people had personal website and today 3m people have personal website and also 3 billion have social media accounts, are we worse off than we were then? The personal website concept isn’t dying. It’s just that it’s no longer the only kind of web presence an individual can have and others are more popular. Also, are you really looking out for the average Joe here? Really? You think that same average Joe that’s currently reposting a two year old meme on his Facebook suddenly will have something worthwhile to say if it’s hosted on his own domain? You think crazy aunt Sue will go from screaming about chem trails to engaging in polite discourse just because she got off Twitter and registered a domain? You think uncle Buddy will do anything but make the background, logo, and font of his site based on the confederate flag because he can host it on BuddyMerican.com instead of on Facebook? I believe we should all have the ability to have a website of our own with as little control lost as possible. And I believe just like it’s a lot easier today than it was 25 years to have a personal website, that it will be even easier 25 years from now. But when people reminisce about the good old days what they like is essentially that it was hard to have a personal website so only the smart people could do it. That isn’t to say that only smart people had websites, but that websites were primarily run by smart people and that was because you couldn’t buy one, you had to build it yourself. And that meant that when you found a personal website that it was likely of high quality. Is that how you feel today when you discover a random abandoned mom blog about how hard it is to decide between different types of formula? What Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, et al did was that they made it super easy for the average Joe to have a pseudo-personal website. It’s your moniker on their platform, you generate content, they host it and make money. And people wanted it by the billions. But at the end of the day do you really believe that all their content would be better if they simply moved from one kind of public platform to another?

lotsofpulp 6y ago

But it's still easier than it has ever been to create their own website. There are video tutorials with step by step instructions. People just don't want to. Which is okay, people are free to allocate their time to different interests.

IgorPartola 6y ago

You just repeated my point. Look, if 25 years ago 100k people had personal website and today 3m people have personal website and also 3 billion have social media accounts, are we worse off than we were then? The personal website concept isn’t dying. It’s just that it’s no longer the only kind of web presence an individual can have and others are more popular. Also, are you really looking out for the average Joe here? Really? You think that same average Joe that’s currently reposting a two year old meme on his Facebook suddenly will have something worthwhile to say if it’s hosted on his own domain? You think crazy aunt Sue will go from screaming about chem trails to engaging in polite discourse just because she got off Twitter and registered a domain? You think uncle Buddy will do anything but make the background, logo, and font of his site based on the confederate flag because he can host it on BuddyMerican.com instead of on Facebook? I believe we should all have the ability to have a website of our own with as little control lost as possible. And I believe just like it’s a lot easier today than it was 25 years to have a personal website, that it will be even easier 25 years from now. But when people reminisce about the good old days what they like is essentially that it was hard to have a personal website so only the smart people could do it. That isn’t to say that only smart people had websites, but that websites were primarily run by smart people and that was because you couldn’t buy one, you had to build it yourself. And that meant that when you found a personal website that it was likely of high quality. Is that how you feel today when you discover a random abandoned mom blog about how hard it is to decide between different types of formula? What Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, et al did was that they made it super easy for the average Joe to have a pseudo-personal website. It’s your moniker on their platform, you generate content, they host it and make money. And people wanted it by the billions. But at the end of the day do you really believe that all their content would be better if they simply moved from one kind of public platform to another?