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Always Own Your Platform (2019)

alwaysownyourplatform.com

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Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#81

Post by spencerchubb »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #75
Method-X wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most regular non-tech people this is true. I think it’s best to control your own platform but you can still leverage Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc to grow your brand and make sure they’re onboarded to your own platform of sorts.

Videos on YouTube will get 800x more views than views on yourownvideowebsite.com (assuming you aren’t a major Hollywood studio). Donald Trump went from 90 million followers on Twitter to 3.2 million followers on his own Twitter clone, and he has such a loyal following that people literally committed treason for him. Network effects are impossible to ignore

That is such an incredible example. If Donald Trump doesn't have strong enough if a brand to overcome network effects, nobody does lmao

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#82

Post by aeturnum »

I think owning your own platform is a really cool thing to do and I think we live in a golden age for doing it. It's never been easier and you've never had more options.

I also think that placing self-ownership before all other concerns will be wrong for many people. The internet is bigger than ever and for many purposes the very real autonomy and flexibility you get out of self-hosting will be outweighed by using an ecosystem that some company is investing money into.

To me, the key is realizing that hosting is work - but it might be work that you enjoy and / or derive benefit from. When someone else does that work for you, they are deriving benefit from it, but sometimes that really is a win / win.

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#85

Post by FpUser »

There is also in between solution. There are whole bunch of small providers that would host your website and if you keep a copy you are safe and small provider will not dictate you what your content should be (within the law of course).

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#86

Post by heywoodlh »

bragr wrote: post #44
heywoodlh wrote: post #23

> Distribute [your content] via methods you control. I'm being nitpicky but it feels off to me to call people out on owning their own platform but then use Cloudflare's CDN instead of running their own. And if they did run their own CDN, they would probably have to use AWS or another worldwide cloud provider and not own the hardware. And if I were Richard Stallman I would probably come down on you for using proprieta…

Unless you are using Cloudflare's specialized security services, CDN is pretty interchangeable and easy to switch between. You can ever do dynamic DNS things to use multiple CDNs at the same time and shift different traffic segments onto different providers if you are into that sort of things, or tier one CDN behind another to act as a mid tier. I don't really understand why the decentralized internet folks harp on C…

> I don't really understand why the decentralized internet folks harp on CDNs

For sure, I was just using it as an example on how subjective "owning your platform" can be.

I actually have zero problems with Cloudflare, CDNs, etc. If I did have a problem with it and you disagreed, wouldn't that still illustrate my point that "ownership" is subjective and opinionated?

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#87

Post by rd07 »

heywoodlh wrote: post #23

> Distribute [your content] via methods you control. I'm being nitpicky but it feels off to me to call people out on owning their own platform but then use Cloudflare's CDN instead of running their own. And if they did run their own CDN, they would probably have to use AWS or another worldwide cloud provider and not own the hardware. And if I were Richard Stallman I would probably come down on you for using proprieta…

I think hosting a website in a low powered computer like Raspberry Pi can be an alternative to really own our platform. Granted, it can't handle big traffic, but it is cheap enough to built and maintain yourself.

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#88

Post by NateEag »

FalconSensei wrote: post #37
benoliver999 wrote: post #8

Really hard for non-techies; even a hosted WordPress isn't easy to use. I've been asked a few times 'I want to write online, what do I do?' and it's hard to find easy to use answers that don't involve vendor lock-in. Or me having to provide support forever. SSGs with plain text files are brilliant once you are set up, but it's a big hurdle getting there. Best I can do is try to find platforms with sane exit strategie…

> SSGs with plain text files are brilliant once you are set up, but it's a big hurdle getting there. Even in that case, not nearly as practical, unless you mostly do long-form and only post from your computer. Even with SSG set up, having to be on the computer to create a draft, or make a quick correction, is really a bother. Also, when you own everything, you end up spending more time tinkering with it, which is not…

> Even with SSG set up, having to be on the computer to create a draft, or make a quick correction, is really a bother.

I think you might be able to solve this with Syncthing and a watch process on your syncthing server. Commit and render on each change, and optionally sync if the rendered site is different from the previous version.

...granted, that's a really tech-nerd setup.

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#89

Post by spatley »

heywoodlh wrote: post #23

> Distribute [your content] via methods you control. I'm being nitpicky but it feels off to me to call people out on owning their own platform but then use Cloudflare's CDN instead of running their own. And if they did run their own CDN, they would probably have to use AWS or another worldwide cloud provider and not own the hardware. And if I were Richard Stallman I would probably come down on you for using proprieta…

The day cloudflare starts filtering individual pieces of content, I would get out fast. FB, twitter, et. al. show me what they think will keep me looking at them for as long as possible. It is only coincidence that it is sometimes content I actually want. If I can get all my friends to just post by RSS I don’t need or want anything else those platforms do.

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#90

Post by heywoodlh »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #71
heywoodlh wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree -- I was just using that as an example of how subjective "owning your own platform" is. EDIT: I originally said "owning your own content" but "owning your own platform" is more in line with what I am talking about

I don't think the CDN qualifies as a "platform" because, I think almost by definition, a platform is something that's hard to move your application off of. It's relatively painless to switch your app's CDN provider compared to, say, moving it between AWS/DigitalOcean/Azure.

I totally see what you mean and I agree with you.

As I said in another comment I have no problems with Cloudflare or CDNs -- and like you said in another comment CDNs can actually make it cheaper and safer to self host your own application.

> I don't think the CDN qualifies as a "platform"

I think you are 100% correct and I agree with your point. But I think even your disagreement with my comment highlights the original point I was making: "ownership" of "your platform" and what those terms mean to you is super subjective based on your values, skillset, etc. Wouldn't you agree on that point? If so, doesn't it come off as condescending (like you felt about my original comment) to tell people what they should or should not do with their digital content creation?

My whole point was that it bothered me that this site encourages people to call out others for creating content on a platform they have disagreement with -- who creates that standard of what is suitably "owned" or not?

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