After reading Cory Doctorow’s essay on the Enshittification of modern web sites:
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a “two sided market,” where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, holding each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.
I decided I really didn’t want to play in the increasingly stupid cesspool that is Facebook, Reddit or Twitter.
It was time to set up my own web site.
Of course I run a couple of blogs on WordPress, but the lack of configuration options (you have to pay a small fortune before you’re even allowed to fiddle with the various themes) means I went my own hosting route.
So here’s the thing: I’m paying money to a hosting site to host this site, so I can post comments that you are free to respond to. I’ll set up an RSS feed. And you are free to ignore my nonsense.
Once in a while there are bird pictures. Here’s a barred owl whose photo I took this morning. I thought he was cool.
(There are more pictures here.)
I may also ramble on about electronics, but mostly I’ll probably comment on politics or current news stories.
But I can guarantee you of a few things.
First, I’m not interested in monitization. That means no ads. Just me blathering about stuff.
Second, you are welcome (or not) to read, or comment. I have no interest (outside of weeding out spam, ‘natch) in censoring what people say, so long as it doesn’t venture into the seriously problematic. (Like slander, pornographic stuff, spam, etc.)
Third, if you want to do the same thing, there are plenty of places where you can set up a blog that isn’t a social media site whose algorithms seem designed to inflame or troll for clicks. If you send me a link and I find it interesting, I may update this site to include links to other web sites.
Fourth, RSS is a great technology. Give me a moment to set it up, so you can aggregate my remarks in your own reader. (Think of it like the Facebook news feed but without ads and without Facebook click-baiting you.)
But here I am. Now let me figure out how to set up the ‘share’ button so I can share news stories…