I now have a website in the world wide web! A tiny part of me on the internet - https://www.unsungnovelty.org/.
Hosting a website is not expensive or complicated as it was once before. It is easier than ever to build a website. You have platforms and technologies like GitHub Pages, GitLab Pages, Netlify, Let's encrypt and many more to make it really easy and cheap. All you have to do is to take action and buy a domain for yourself (which I highly recommend if you want better control over your website.) to make it happen. In my first post, I want to share some of the other reasons why I decided to host a website apart from being inexpensive and easy.
Step towards a decentralised internet
The Internet used to be a collection of individual websites. But it has changed into some platforms that is hoarding all of the conversations, ideas and most importantly - our data. In short, internet have become the opposite of what it was meant to be - centralised instead of being a decentralised platform.
With events like data breaches and bad company policies, I think it is time to re-evaluate where we should use a centralised solution and where we shouldn't. This website is one small step towards taking some control over my data and space on the internet. A website is only one piece of the puzzle, but below stories are becoming and increasing trend.
- Digital Exile: How I Got Banned for Life from AirBnB
- Instagram Deleted My Account with 135K Followers. Zero Warning.
- How Google Play “Terminated” a Developer for No Reason
- WireGuard removed from Google Play Store, rectification in progress
- I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb
The questions that we should be asking ourselves are, how dependent are we on that centralised solution? Can we find a better solution? Self host it? ...find an open source solution to do the same? And if we can, why aren't we doing it?
A platform to learn, create and share
A website provides you with a platform where you can share your thoughts and to showcase things that you've built. You are not restricted within a platform and also have complete freedom over the things that you want to build, write and share.
POSSE!
How to share you ask? POSSE or Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere is the method where you publish on your website first and then share it everywhere else. You might have noticed this at the end of some blog posts like the below mentioned.
This way your thoughts and contents are resilient to any platform's policy changes. Also, you don't force anyone to use a particular platform but only make it more accessible to people who want to follow you and your work.
Who's blogs/websites should I follow?
I am new to the blog scene myself but I have been following a couple of people's blog for a while now and they are Tom Macwright and Daniel Miessler. But I have started catching up on the works and articles of Joel Spolsky, Victoria Drake, Ben Sadeghipour. I am sure the list is going to be longer soon as I explore and read more.
You hosted your website. What's next?
I've read that the most difficult part is not to host a website, but to keep it up-to-date. In fact, out of the 37 people I follow and have websites, ~70% of them have not updated their websites for a minimum of almost an year or more! So for the time being, I will keep an eye on making the best out of this website by writing about technology + human intersection and self documenting the things I've learnt!
Inspiration
This website and article is inspired because of the two articles I've read recently. Why I Have a Website and You Should Too by Jamie Tanna and Writing HTML in HTML by John Ankarström.* Inspiration for content/text focused website is from Tom Macwright's website which is thoughtfully organised and well put together. There a lot of things I've learnt from them which I want to showcase here on this website eventually. Do check them out!
References / Links
- The Privacy, Security, & OSINT Show Podcast - Is Your Personal Website Private & Secure?
- https://indieweb.org/
- About NowNowNow
Have you thought about hosting your own website?
This article was first published in https://www.unsungnovelty.org under the title "Why Do I Host a Website?"
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