13 ms·

I'm also developing for 25 years, I also really really like websites and coding, but not for the reasons the OP sums up. For me, it's not about all kinds of sol

I'm also developing for 25 years, I also really really like websites and coding, but not for the reasons the OP sums up. For me, it's not about all kinds of solved or unsolved technical questions. Today is a very good time to build websites, because a good website is the only way to push back to Big Tech and it's practices. Your website can be build on techniques invented in a time where the dream of the internet was not yet shattered by Big Tech. Of course you can choose to put your website on AWS and svck on the bolls of Jeff a little. But you don't have to! And that's what all kinds of young devs just miss. Oh, and RSS is not dead. Not at all (thanks WordPress, for putting a feed on every instance). RSS is the only workable way to make the web social again.

randmeerkat 5y ago
> Of course you can choose to put your website on AWS and svck on the bolls of Jeff a little. But you don't have to! And that's what all kinds of young devs just miss. Where are you hosting your websites?
- mysterydip 5y ago
  Can't speak for OP, but mine are on vultr. There's a whole industry of web hosting, virtual private servers, or colocation facilities to choose from.
- vgel 5y ago
  Not OP, but Linode. Used to be on their $10 a month VPS, downgraded when they added the $5 a month one. I think they have some fancy Kube stuff now but I just have a makefile that rsyncs a directory to my VPS and nginx picks it up. Honestly even the $5 VPS is more power than I need for static files, but it's nice to have the option to throw up a flask app or run some web-scraping scripts overnight or something. Admittedly it's behind Cloudflare because DDOS skiddies, but I think the CF lock-in isn't much if you're not using workers or anything proprietary to them. Admittedly it does suck for people with really privacy-customized browsers or using Tor, but idk a better solution unfortunately.
  - FractalHQ 5y ago
    But personal-website-tier static file hosting is free these days!
    - hellbannedguy 5y ago
- rambambram 5y ago
  It's called webhosting at a hosting provider. ;) It works for me like this since the 90's. Here in Europe there are literally hundreds or thousands of webhosts. Some pricier, some faster, some cheaper. I host some websites at Antagonist in The Netherlands. But I'm strongly considering moving, although they are by far the fastest and most reliable party I've seen. Why? Because they - just like a lot of other European webhosts the last years - are now part of some vague sh1tshow called Group.one or something. I don't know what this organisation is up to, but I don't trust it for a second. I guess they are trying to become some European version of AWS or something. Data grabbers, probably. Every sincere webhost that became part of their 'network' (they sell it like this, but it's just a merger/acquisition) uses stupid wording in their press releases, customers are not kept up to date about these important changes (only after the fact, of course) and they all of a sudden are now offering 'cloud storage' like it's Dropbox. This was a bigger reply then I intended. But thanks for yours!
  - post-it 5y ago
    Smaller web hosts tend to use AWS on the backend. Sometimes they use Azure or OVH, but they rarely have their own datacentre.
- hungryforcodes 5y ago
  Contobo, Digital Ocean just to name two.
- Bellamy 5y ago
  Scaleway
proxyon 5y ago
here here. keep fighting the good fight
stopcraeting 5y ago
It is against the TOS of the largest ISP in my country to even host a server of any sort. Colocation isn't that fun.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bserge 5y ago
- patmorgan23 5y ago
  There are tens of thousands of hosting providers around the world. You don't have to pick AWS, GCP, or Azure.
- rambambram 5y ago
  That's a shame in itself, I see self hosting as the holy grail of the internet. There are a lot of good webhosts though. Worked in the 90's, and still works today.
samhw 5y ago
> Oh, and RSS is not dead. Not at all (thanks WordPress, for putting a feed on every instance). RSS is the only workable way to make the web social again. What we need, IMO, is more experimental protocols to enrich the web, which maverick developers can use to good effect, the same way we did originally with RSS. More browsers forking Chromium or Servo to add support for these new features. Hell, maybe even something that doesn't resemble the Web at all. David didn't beat Goliath and nor did Heracles beat the Hydra by using 'the same old weapon but better'. The only thing that wins is a paradigm shift.
- rambambram 5y ago
  I agree with your sentiment, but RSS and the likes are not 'the same old weapon but better'. It was never 'weaponized' in the first place. It never really came to fruition for the masses. To me, RSS is like two sticks and a string, and it needs some people who can see that they can make a bow and arrow out of it (to stay in the realm of 'weapons'). I don't like talking about tech and business in a sense of 'weapons', 'winning', 'smashing the competition', etc. Talking about it in this sense makes it a struggle, because one will look at tech from the pov of a stockholder, capitalist, or just a narcissist. The wording is very important, and the moment you make that wording your own, you can't see it in a different light anymore. To be honest, it's only since recently that I myself take RSS seriously. Before, I developed a sh1tload of websites without even really knowing what RSS is capable of. Ignorant me. Thanks for your reply!
  - pxtail 5y ago
    > I don't like talking about tech and business in a sense of 'weapons', 'winning', 'smashing the competition', etc. Talking about it in this sense makes it a struggle, because one will look at tech from the pov of a stockholder, capitalist, or just a narcissist. The wording is very important, and the moment you make that wording your own, you can't see it in a different light anymore. I like this paragraph a lot, in my perception this is why most of cryptocurrency initiatives and recently hijacked and massacred `web3` concept are fruitless so far - too much focus on how to get rich quickly
zerop 5y ago
I find lots of love for RSS by "innovators" and "experts" of HN community. Despite of it, the thing (RSS) is only going low and I don’t see anything other than RSS readers/mergers invented?
- rambambram 5y ago
  Stay tuned. ;)
- criddell 5y ago
  I think RSS is still in heavy use by podcasts.
lemonberry 5y ago
"because a good website is the only way to push back to Big Tech and it's practices" I agree with this. But what really spins my beanie is the amount of power a website gives a single person, small business or non-profit. It's really amazing.
- rambambram 5y ago
  So true! I hear small businesses and freelancers complain about being kicked of Twitter, OnlyFans, Youtube, Facebook, etc. One might not immediately make money with a website (although you sure can!), but the moment you are kicked of some platform, you have a safe haven to fall back on. A place where you can share the same textual or visual media with your visitors(/followers/friends/fans/connections). But instead of organizing a party and renting some space, you make it a house party, where you are the host. The only moderators on your website are you, your webhosting provider, and the government (I call it GovMod). Thanks for your reply!
  - lemonberry 5y ago
    My biggest concern is for the people relying on the big platforms you mentioned but not using them to build their own lists and lines of communication with their clients.
    - rambambram 5y ago
      Agree. The big platforms make it all way too comfortable for everybody. And I get it completely. Over the course of years, Google and the likes probably have more phone numbers of my contacts than I have. Only three weeks ago I made a text file with every name and number in it, so I have a safe copy for myself.
      - shuntress 5y ago
        This is the type of thing people mean when they bring up regulations for big tech companies. You shouldn't have to worry about suddenly losing your list of contacts. Google should be required by law to provide your data to you in cases such as account termination.

randmeerkat 5y ago

> Of course you can choose to put your website on AWS and svck on the bolls of Jeff a little. But you don't have to! And that's what all kinds of young devs just miss. Where are you hosting your websites?

mysterydip 5y ago
Can't speak for OP, but mine are on vultr. There's a whole industry of web hosting, virtual private servers, or colocation facilities to choose from.
vgel 5y ago
Not OP, but Linode. Used to be on their $10 a month VPS, downgraded when they added the $5 a month one. I think they have some fancy Kube stuff now but I just have a makefile that rsyncs a directory to my VPS and nginx picks it up. Honestly even the $5 VPS is more power than I need for static files, but it's nice to have the option to throw up a flask app or run some web-scraping scripts overnight or something. Admittedly it's behind Cloudflare because DDOS skiddies, but I think the CF lock-in isn't much if you're not using workers or anything proprietary to them. Admittedly it does suck for people with really privacy-customized browsers or using Tor, but idk a better solution unfortunately.
- FractalHQ 5y ago
  But personal-website-tier static file hosting is free these days!
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
rambambram 5y ago
It's called webhosting at a hosting provider. ;) It works for me like this since the 90's. Here in Europe there are literally hundreds or thousands of webhosts. Some pricier, some faster, some cheaper. I host some websites at Antagonist in The Netherlands. But I'm strongly considering moving, although they are by far the fastest and most reliable party I've seen. Why? Because they - just like a lot of other European webhosts the last years - are now part of some vague sh1tshow called Group.one or something. I don't know what this organisation is up to, but I don't trust it for a second. I guess they are trying to become some European version of AWS or something. Data grabbers, probably. Every sincere webhost that became part of their 'network' (they sell it like this, but it's just a merger/acquisition) uses stupid wording in their press releases, customers are not kept up to date about these important changes (only after the fact, of course) and they all of a sudden are now offering 'cloud storage' like it's Dropbox. This was a bigger reply then I intended. But thanks for yours!
- post-it 5y ago
  Smaller web hosts tend to use AWS on the backend. Sometimes they use Azure or OVH, but they rarely have their own datacentre.
hungryforcodes 5y ago
Contobo, Digital Ocean just to name two.
Bellamy 5y ago
Scaleway

proxyon 5y ago

here here. keep fighting the good fight

stopcraeting 5y ago

It is against the TOS of the largest ISP in my country to even host a server of any sort. Colocation isn't that fun.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bserge 5y ago
patmorgan23 5y ago
There are tens of thousands of hosting providers around the world. You don't have to pick AWS, GCP, or Azure.
rambambram 5y ago
That's a shame in itself, I see self hosting as the holy grail of the internet. There are a lot of good webhosts though. Worked in the 90's, and still works today.

samhw 5y ago

> Oh, and RSS is not dead. Not at all (thanks WordPress, for putting a feed on every instance). RSS is the only workable way to make the web social again. What we need, IMO, is more experimental protocols to enrich the web, which maverick developers can use to good effect, the same way we did originally with RSS. More browsers forking Chromium or Servo to add support for these new features. Hell, maybe even something that doesn't resemble the Web at all. David didn't beat Goliath and nor did Heracles beat the Hydra by using 'the same old weapon but better'. The only thing that wins is a paradigm shift.

rambambram 5y ago
I agree with your sentiment, but RSS and the likes are not 'the same old weapon but better'. It was never 'weaponized' in the first place. It never really came to fruition for the masses. To me, RSS is like two sticks and a string, and it needs some people who can see that they can make a bow and arrow out of it (to stay in the realm of 'weapons'). I don't like talking about tech and business in a sense of 'weapons', 'winning', 'smashing the competition', etc. Talking about it in this sense makes it a struggle, because one will look at tech from the pov of a stockholder, capitalist, or just a narcissist. The wording is very important, and the moment you make that wording your own, you can't see it in a different light anymore. To be honest, it's only since recently that I myself take RSS seriously. Before, I developed a sh1tload of websites without even really knowing what RSS is capable of. Ignorant me. Thanks for your reply!
- pxtail 5y ago
  > I don't like talking about tech and business in a sense of 'weapons', 'winning', 'smashing the competition', etc. Talking about it in this sense makes it a struggle, because one will look at tech from the pov of a stockholder, capitalist, or just a narcissist. The wording is very important, and the moment you make that wording your own, you can't see it in a different light anymore. I like this paragraph a lot, in my perception this is why most of cryptocurrency initiatives and recently hijacked and massacred `web3` concept are fruitless so far - too much focus on how to get rich quickly

zerop 5y ago

I find lots of love for RSS by "innovators" and "experts" of HN community. Despite of it, the thing (RSS) is only going low and I don’t see anything other than RSS readers/mergers invented?

rambambram 5y ago
Stay tuned. ;)
criddell 5y ago
I think RSS is still in heavy use by podcasts.

lemonberry 5y ago

"because a good website is the only way to push back to Big Tech and it's practices" I agree with this. But what really spins my beanie is the amount of power a website gives a single person, small business or non-profit. It's really amazing.

rambambram 5y ago
So true! I hear small businesses and freelancers complain about being kicked of Twitter, OnlyFans, Youtube, Facebook, etc. One might not immediately make money with a website (although you sure can!), but the moment you are kicked of some platform, you have a safe haven to fall back on. A place where you can share the same textual or visual media with your visitors(/followers/friends/fans/connections). But instead of organizing a party and renting some space, you make it a house party, where you are the host. The only moderators on your website are you, your webhosting provider, and the government (I call it GovMod). Thanks for your reply!
- lemonberry 5y ago
  My biggest concern is for the people relying on the big platforms you mentioned but not using them to build their own lists and lines of communication with their clients.
  - rambambram 5y ago
    Agree. The big platforms make it all way too comfortable for everybody. And I get it completely. Over the course of years, Google and the likes probably have more phone numbers of my contacts than I have. Only three weeks ago I made a text file with every name and number in it, so I have a safe copy for myself.
    - shuntress 5y ago
      This is the type of thing people mean when they bring up regulations for big tech companies. You shouldn't have to worry about suddenly losing your list of contacts. Google should be required by law to provide your data to you in cases such as account termination.