A New Format

I'm exploring a new format for my blog, where I reply to blog posts I've found in the form of a blog of my own. I have a few reasons for doing this:

First and foremost, I don't have an account on Lobste.rs (as it's invite-only), so I can't comment on articles directly that I read there. I often find I have a lot of thoughts and ideas I need to get out after reading a good blog, so responding here in the form of a post makes sense as a fallback solution.

This was my original reasoning, at least. Since I came up with this idea I've realized there are other nice side effects, the biggest benefit being that it seems like a great way to connect with the authors of posts I've enjoyed, or at least, to start a conversation around the ideas I've had.

It's more than that, though: this is a way for me to start building the web I want to see. Let me explain.

The web I grew up with just isn't there anymore. I grew up in the Geocities / Angelfire era, which was quickly followed by the MySpace boom as I went into high school. In those days, sites linked to one another on "blog rolls". Each site had a unique look-and-feel. Beyond that, they offered truly unique spaces and hubs for people to gather around.

It wasn't perfect, by any means – discovery was a huge hurdle in those days, even with Google gaining traction as a search engine. But if you found your people, it was like you had a home on this weird internet world. A place of your own, in other words.

Now, we live our online lives in silos, isolated from one another by the "rules of the house" and prevented from leaving by heavy network effects (if you don't believe me, try leaving Facebook and getting people to follow). There is no free expression on this internet, outside of what the platforms allow, and they're becoming increasingly draconian in what they do and don't allow on these platforms (see: Facebook and Instagram censoring searches for left-leaning content, or TikTok not letting people talk about violence in sensible terms without getting banned).

I could go on for days about these existing platforms and their shortcomings, but that's just it: we know they suck. We just don't have a viable alternative as users, unless we build out our own networks.

This is exactly what I propose here.

I propose that we build out our own platform in which we have personal sites linked by discussions between them; common, open interfaces like mailing lists and RSS to stay updated; and community rule in place of an oligarch's iron ban-hammer.

I won't usually get this philosophical (probably). But it's worth thinking about the world we'd like to see, so we can start to take steps towards that world. It's not going to be perfect to start, and it'll take time – Ghost as a blogging platform is cool, not the ideal I'm imagining, but it's a start to something bigger.

I want to build the web I want to see. And it's starting here, now. If you'd like to join me, you can start by subscribing to updates on this blog below. Stay tuned!