3 ms·

I mean, that's because Facebook Pages are cheap. Businesses don't want to spend money on anything they don't have to, and people aren't much different. The argu

I mean, that's because Facebook Pages are cheap. Businesses don't want to spend money on anything they don't have to, and people aren't much different. The argument for learning to write even basic HTML only to upload it even to something like Amazon S3 (free) and direct a web address to it (not free) or spend money on hosting to not have to learn how to deposit files into an S3 bucket is a LOT of time to spend to accomplish this task. Instead, you can outsource all of that time, effort, and labor to Facebook who already built a website. And yeah, it sucks ass and it's full of undesirable people, but it's free and it accomplishes the same goal. Google, meanwhile, sees that everyone is setting up Facebook profiles instead of websites because it's easier, and now businesses websites are sometimes quite out of date compared to their Facebook pages so they begin prioritizing results from network sites over regular pages. And now people can follow their favorite businesses on Facebook and be at least somewhat assured they'll always know if, for example, they have to close up one day unexpectedly and won't be doing business again until tomorrow. This is not meant to be an argument against the cheap web, mind: I'm just saying that people trend towards what is the lowest-cost option (by money, time, effort, or any combination) and use it because it works and gets the job done. I still keep a website, because I value my independence and have no interest in having my thoughts dumbed down to suit the preferences of corporate America. But the vast majority of people do not care about that (until they get smacked with a ban-hammer anyway) and will just stick to the easy option. Also, I would state: there is no reason we couldn't have a social media site that functions as a public utility instead of a for-profit corporation. We could just... have a Facebook that doesn't need to piss everyone off to make money. Social media without profit motive could be a massive boon to our society.

ghaff 3y ago
The other conclusion I've come to is that web designers way overcomplicate stuff. So I don't want to do a Facebook page. What are my relatively low-cost options? Well, I can have a really basic HTML site but that's a little late-90s. OK, a Wordpress site then. Now I'm dealing with introductory rates that shoot up after a year unless I just use a standard VPS and now I'm having to do a lot of stuff myself. And, as far as I can tell, most of the literally thousands of templates/themes out there don't make it straightforward to just have a nice homepage with a simple blog post that doesn't require a high-resolution photograph to go with it. I'm probably settling on just sticking with Blogger using a new theme. I'm not really happy with that solution--but I'm not a web designer. I'm willing to spend some money but I haven't really found an answer I love.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  > The other conclusion I've come to is that web designers way overcomplicate stuff. I mean, there's a floor right? The floor being that you need a server that can respond to HTTP requests, yours or otherwise; you need said server accessible from an address to which you can map a DNS record to; and you need HTML files that can be served in response to that request. Few of these are free, but many can be had for very cheap. > So I don't want to do a Facebook page. What are my relatively low-cost options? Amazon S3 with Cloudflare in front of it and a domain name. Probably about $15 per year unless you manage enough traffic to get billed by Amazon. > Well, I can have a really basic HTML site but that's a little late-90s. I think that's a little reductive. HTML sites can be just about anything and they can be quite fancy if you're willing to put the time in to learn something like Jekyll. As a side hustle I maintain a couple of basic HTML websites for local businesses, and just bill them for the annuals + the time I spend tweaking things for them, which thanks to my workflows, isn't much. > OK, a Wordpress site then. .... I'm willing to spend some money but I haven't really found an answer I love. I mean, that's just the platform-ification of the Internet described. There's a floor of technical requirements and software experience required to publish on the Internet, and the vast majority of people like yourself do not possess it and aren't interested in acquiring it. That's fine, but it's akin to saying "I want to print a newsletter but don't want to learn how printers work." You've selected yourself out of your own goal. HTML, CSS and a bit of JavaScript can make dynamic and beautiful websites. But it's not without a learning curve, and if your response to that is "well I want to do this without learning HTML/CSS/JS" well, that's the central conceit of Facebook pages, Shopify websites, and Wordpress.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    What I've been doing is a homepage on S3 with a few static HTML pages and a link to Blogger for the blog. And a domain name I've had for ages pointed at it. But, if I'm going to be on Blogger anyway for blogging, my best bet is probably to find a reasonable way to also make it my home page destination. Or maybe not. We'll see. I'm just not sure I'm especially interested in spending a lot of time on tech that isn't my ultimate objective.
- rchaud 3y ago
logtempo 3y ago
States like to control, internet state of mind is 100% liberal, and both live in a capitalist world. Internet won its freedom, but freedom did not overcome the greed from capitalism. Good news is you can still go to mastodon, after all.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  > Internet won its freedom I'm gonna need a real big citation on that. If by freedom you mean what a lot of people mean, which is that it opens potential revenue streams and markets and the oppression has it's origins in capital holders, then sure. "Freedom" in it's modern vernacular tends to mean this, hence "bringing freedom to Iraq" actually meaning "making sure Iraq's oil and other assets are open to exploitation by western corporations." By this definition the Internet has never been more "free."
  - logtempo 3y ago
    By the liberalism/capitalism definition: anyone can make its website, its app, its blog etc. Which is the opposite of "we need an official social network" intervention

ghaff 3y ago

The other conclusion I've come to is that web designers way overcomplicate stuff. So I don't want to do a Facebook page. What are my relatively low-cost options? Well, I can have a really basic HTML site but that's a little late-90s. OK, a Wordpress site then. Now I'm dealing with introductory rates that shoot up after a year unless I just use a standard VPS and now I'm having to do a lot of stuff myself. And, as far as I can tell, most of the literally thousands of templates/themes out there don't make it straightforward to just have a nice homepage with a simple blog post that doesn't require a high-resolution photograph to go with it. I'm probably settling on just sticking with Blogger using a new theme. I'm not really happy with that solution--but I'm not a web designer. I'm willing to spend some money but I haven't really found an answer I love.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
> The other conclusion I've come to is that web designers way overcomplicate stuff. I mean, there's a floor right? The floor being that you need a server that can respond to HTTP requests, yours or otherwise; you need said server accessible from an address to which you can map a DNS record to; and you need HTML files that can be served in response to that request. Few of these are free, but many can be had for very cheap. > So I don't want to do a Facebook page. What are my relatively low-cost options? Amazon S3 with Cloudflare in front of it and a domain name. Probably about $15 per year unless you manage enough traffic to get billed by Amazon. > Well, I can have a really basic HTML site but that's a little late-90s. I think that's a little reductive. HTML sites can be just about anything and they can be quite fancy if you're willing to put the time in to learn something like Jekyll. As a side hustle I maintain a couple of basic HTML websites for local businesses, and just bill them for the annuals + the time I spend tweaking things for them, which thanks to my workflows, isn't much. > OK, a Wordpress site then. .... I'm willing to spend some money but I haven't really found an answer I love. I mean, that's just the platform-ification of the Internet described. There's a floor of technical requirements and software experience required to publish on the Internet, and the vast majority of people like yourself do not possess it and aren't interested in acquiring it. That's fine, but it's akin to saying "I want to print a newsletter but don't want to learn how printers work." You've selected yourself out of your own goal. HTML, CSS and a bit of JavaScript can make dynamic and beautiful websites. But it's not without a learning curve, and if your response to that is "well I want to do this without learning HTML/CSS/JS" well, that's the central conceit of Facebook pages, Shopify websites, and Wordpress.
- ghaff 3y ago
  What I've been doing is a homepage on S3 with a few static HTML pages and a link to Blogger for the blog. And a domain name I've had for ages pointed at it. But, if I'm going to be on Blogger anyway for blogging, my best bet is probably to find a reasonable way to also make it my home page destination. Or maybe not. We'll see. I'm just not sure I'm especially interested in spending a lot of time on tech that isn't my ultimate objective.
rchaud 3y ago

logtempo 3y ago

States like to control, internet state of mind is 100% liberal, and both live in a capitalist world. Internet won its freedom, but freedom did not overcome the greed from capitalism. Good news is you can still go to mastodon, after all.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
> Internet won its freedom I'm gonna need a real big citation on that. If by freedom you mean what a lot of people mean, which is that it opens potential revenue streams and markets and the oppression has it's origins in capital holders, then sure. "Freedom" in it's modern vernacular tends to mean this, hence "bringing freedom to Iraq" actually meaning "making sure Iraq's oil and other assets are open to exploitation by western corporations." By this definition the Internet has never been more "free."
- logtempo 3y ago
  By the liberalism/capitalism definition: anyone can make its website, its app, its blog etc. Which is the opposite of "we need an official social network" intervention