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Let's make the web personal again

blog.nymhq.com

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Re: Let's make the web personal again

#111

Post by mym1990 »

nirimda wrote: post #35
nunez wrote: post #5

If this were true, SquareSpace would be trading way higher than they are now, Twitter wouldn't exist, and Facebook would look a lot like MySpace. My take: people created websites back then because there was no other choice. People RUSHED into MySpace when it got hot partly because of this. Many people don't care about web culture; they only care about consuming. Just like many people don't become screenwriters or dir…

> Many people don't care about web culture; they only care about consuming. Strong disagree. People want to participate, they want to be part of a conversation. When you "consume" content on Facebook or Twitter, you can produce content and reasonably expect to get an audience - because you know there's other people there. If you have your own personal website, you have no natural audience. If you're lucky, Google mig…

People want to mindlessly scroll, a very low energy form of participation. At the end of the day, a very very small percentage of the users are creating content on a regular basis. You can't ignore the things that you give up by opting into a mass scale product, privacy, security, etc...

With a personal website, everything does become harder, but it ends up being your space and only your space. We've become accustomed to going viral and now no one can settle for having 50 consistent readers because that just seems so insignificant.

Re: Let's make the web personal again

#113

Post by MrVandemar »

Eupraxias wrote: post #67
julianlam wrote: post #2

The HN zeitgeist (at least as of 2021) was to use a static site generator like Hugo or Jekyll. Why would we want to use Nym — speaking as someone who doesn't use either, that is. When the itch to "small b blog" (love the term, by the way) came around, I built my own blogging frontend utilising GitHub Gists as the data store[1]. It's been working great so far, and uses basically no resources. [1] https://devnull.land/…

Honest question: does anyone else open notepad and start typing when they want to make a new webpage? I have been making website and pages since 1998, and have never done it another way.

Yes. Well, I use vim, but the principle is the same.

Re: Let's make the web personal again

#114

Post by mdbauman »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #11
nunez wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks! agreed. browsers can still talk HTTP/0.9 and HTTP/1.0 (though they largely don't want to, for good reasons) and HTML still works! i loved (LOVED) the old Internet, but time has moved on. that said, Hugo is amazing and I absolutely love it! sidebar now that I'm on this soapbox. i think this is 100% the reason why iOS and macOS will never converge. The desktop OS is a dying product. If everyone could do their w…

> The desktop OS is a dying product. If everyone could do their work on their phones and tablets, they would. Count me out of this brave new world of tiny screens and crappy UI/UX.

I highly doubt the phone and PC markets will converge any time soon.

Apple has made seemingly made the most progress toward this and it isn't hard to imagine someone plugging their iPhone in to a screen when they arrive at work and resuming their Excel spreadsheet with the connected keyboard, no different than the company-issued laptop today. But I don't see what incentive Apple has to make that a reality when they can keep selling people two separate $1000+ devices.

Edit: I would love to be proven wrong, so any opinions/examples to the contrary are very welcome.

Re: Let's make the web personal again

#115

Post by javajosh »

asdff wrote: post #101
javajosh wrote: post #18

Great idea! But the problem, now, is on the client side. Readers need RSS. This lets authors publish at their own pace (which we can assume is relatively slowly) and doesn't burden the user with checking for new content manually. Of course, Twitter is a de facto RSS feed for some, and several other services (HN included) serve that role to some extent. But for the personal web, for those readers (and writers) of the…

>Until then we'll have to make do with Twitter, etc for RSS and cobble together our own ad hoc editor networks via awkward emails and/or shared google docs. Or you can use existing blogware and rss. Plenty of people do use rss still today. Plenty of small and major media websites still offer it. Every few years there's a hn thread something akin to "ask hn: does anyone use rss still" at which point its the most engag…

You know what, you're right. I just installed Opera for the first time, which includes a usable RSS browser. However, only one out of the OP's list of personal websites had an RSS feed!

Opera has a lot of cool features, BTW! In the first 30 minutes I'm much more impressed than I expected. Kind of incredible you can get such great software for free (if not open source). Of course, that probably counts as a red flag in some rational threat-models...

Re: Let's make the web personal again

#116

Post by EarlKing »

lkrubner wrote: post #75

The law matters. Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act matters. And in the old days, for several centuries, the laws regarding libel and slander mattered, but of course at the moment they are not being aggressively pursued. Nowadays you can go on Twitter and say that Hillary Clinton runs a child sex ring out of a pizza restaurant in Washington DC, and Clinton is not allowed to bring a libel suit against Twitter b…

Not to be that guy, but even without Section 230 Hillary Clinton wouldn't be able to sue because she can very easily be demonstrated to be a Public Figure. This is the reason why you can go on Twitter and say pretty much anything you want about celebrities.

Also: Repeal Section 230? Yeah, that sounds like a great idea... it's a great way to ensure that the only speech that is permitted is Corporate speech, not Your speech. Thanks, but no thanks.

Re: Let's make the web personal again

#117

Post by bovermyer »

lkrubner wrote: post #106
bovermyer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can encourage personal websites without discouraging communal platforms, though.

The historical evidence suggests otherwise.

Oh? Show me an example of where you cannot promote the use of personal websites while simultaneously _not_ attacking or discouraging communal sites.

Re: Let's make the web personal again

#118

Post by heavyset_go »

nunez wrote: post #5

If this were true, SquareSpace would be trading way higher than they are now, Twitter wouldn't exist, and Facebook would look a lot like MySpace. My take: people created websites back then because there was no other choice. People RUSHED into MySpace when it got hot partly because of this. Many people don't care about web culture; they only care about consuming. Just like many people don't become screenwriters or dir…

> Many people don't care about web culture; they only care about consuming. Just like many people don't become screenwriters or directors because they love TV or movies (though this is definitely a bigger pipeline than tech); they just want The Avengers or Real Housewives or whatever.

Is it what they want, or is that only what the market is willing to give them that's profitable? And how much of it is the result of manufactured consent?

Re: Let's make the web personal again

#119

Post by renewiltord »

nickthegreek wrote: post #15

Anyone know how a way to run a personal site for around $50 USD or under a year that can be pointed to a custom domain? My wife does some rug making and wants a portfolio available to show off her art, but we would prefer not to pay $10-20/month for such a site.

Fastest way if you want CMS stuff integrated is wordpress.com on the Personal plan.

But if you're okay with a git style flow, then you can use Cloudflare Pages. That's what I use. It's free and fast. But it's not spouse-friendly.

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