Recently Brennan posted this response to another post, Human Web by @shellsharks, which was also partially an elaboration on a response to Brennan’s Medium post about omg.lol. Mostly you can interpret it as a debate about where to place Medium in relation to the indie web, but this is the part of Brennan’s latest post that stood out to me:
Even if you’re running your own server on the bare metal of a Libreboot’d ThinkPad X220, your domain is still managed by a registrar. You don’t truly “own” a domain, you lease it, subject to ICANN policies and the continued operation of the global DNS infrastructure.
Besides those considerations, I’d also add that Medium provides an easy way to add a comment section, and since comments do have their use cases (thread here), the value of that convenience shouldn’t be discounted either.
Interesting article. I’ve never quite liked the way “IndieWeb” comes with a lot of technical baggage, especially when you get further into it. A site on a neocities subdomain that the webmaster has spent ages customising and tweaking the CSS feels far more “indie” to me than a site with its own domain that runs Wordpress and a bunch of plugins for webmentions/microformats/etc with no customisation (not to throw shade at anyone using Wordpress, or not wanting to tweak anything! That’s more than fine, I just needed a comparison!)
I always liked “small web” where the “small” means “small space” or “small communities” or “people not giant corporations” rather than “small file size” (which is a noble goal just not really a rallying cry that I care much about myself).
A medium article behind a login wall definitely doesn’t fall into any of the labels, though
On the one hand, I figure any time you get a group of hobbyists together for long enough, you’re susceptible to them turning out like the ProZD skit about before and after discovering the subreddit for water. On the other hand, at this point I’ve seen a few people define the indie web as certain technological measures, and, well, no.
As one such person on a neocities subdomain, I appreciate that. I’ll also add that I don’t think personal customization is all that necessary, but like I’ve said before, I don’t like the idea of counting Squarespace and GoDaddy as more indie than Dreamwidth.
Oh, that’s hilarious and so true. I have definitely been that person for some hobbies - don’t get me started on talking about card sleeves for board games!
Absolutely. If you don’t want to spend your life tweaking CSS that is a very sensible and valid decision! I was trying to say that merely ticking some technical boxes isn’t the be-all-and-end-all.
Thinking about it a bit more, I think this is one of those “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” things. We all have slightly different aspects we want to see: domains, comments, webmentions, shrines, personal stories, 88x31s, webrings, no login walls, etc etc. Some subset of those make up what we consider indie/small/open/[other label]-web, and getting everyone to agree on those terms and features is probably just going to be an exercise in frustration.
It makes me appreciate how remarkably civil all the linked posts are. It’d be very easy to get very gatekeepery about it, but noone really is. (Except me, above, where I snarked about medium )
Hello, it’s me, Brennan! I’m so excited to join 32bit cafe.
Coyote’s comment on my essay brought me here.
I’ve started to always put a link to my non-paywalled version of what I write to the top of my Medium articles before the paywall cut. But I hear what people are saying here, that’s why I created a program called Meddle (write–up on it here) for people who use Medium and want to move their work to the IndieWeb! :)
Like I say in the post Coyote linked, I think IndieWeb is a spectrum. And I also think it requires you to wear a lot of different hats (designer, developer, writer, etc.) and I think platforms that let people focus on one aspect before moving onto the others is a good way to onboard!
I’ve been chronically online for over fifteen years and I only have properly joined the IndieWeb in the past few months.
I think this is probably the best way to think about it overall. Too many times I’ve seen people talk about the indie web as if you’re either exclusively on Facebook or you’re using a static site generator, with no in between. I remember back when I made my post about indie web priorities, someone asked if Pillowfort counts as part of the indie web. I’m sure some folks would say no way! And I get why, but I also think it’s worth designating some middle ground on a sliding scale.
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I’m so excited to join 32bit cafe.