It's Hard (but Easy) to Write When No One's Watching
The open web/indie web movement has seen at least somewhat of an uptick in discussion, at least in my bloggy circles, since the Tesla overlord decided to "free the bird". That's great, IMO. The open web, to me, is just an idea. It's the idea that we ought to be able to have independent control of our digital turf. And that when we write and and post on our turf, it should be easy to share that with with others. Likewise, it should be simple for me to find others' blogs or websites to keep up with what they are doing.
Twitter and Facebook and the rest don't want you doing this, because they want you on their platform. Your attention generates money for them by way of advertising. That sucks, and I don't like participating in it. Twitter is a bit of a drug for me, so I often stay off for long periods of time before bingeing for a few weeks before I remember what a hell-hole it is. Facebook... meh. I had one for a long time, left, came back for a bit for work, then recentlyl deleted it again. I'm fairly confident I'm gone for good on that platform. Instagram is a little trickier, but it's advertising has become so obnoxious that I think I'll be leaving there soon too.
But, (and to the point of the title of this post) this is where it gets a little challenging. When you're a "normal" person who doesn't have time to build a website or tinker around and build things, how does one convince you to take that leap? I mean, I built this site from scratch in Python. Wordpress and the like are a little easier to get started on, but it can sometimes feel like you're on your own little island. And it doesn't feel like you're being followed and read and seen on bloggy platforms in the same way as IG, FB, and Twitter.
There is some level of freedom that comes with this. I know that there is no one reading this right now, and I find actually a tiny bit of comfort in that. I could feasibly say whatever I want -- just to try it out or see if it's what I really think. That's helpful. But there's that small part of my brain that wants the attention I'd get at a scaled-up platform. Likes and comments, etc., are addictive in their own little stupid ways.
I'd like a way out of this mindset that having attention is what matters. I want the blog itself to matter. I want the writing and the thinking to matter to me more than the attention from others ever did. And I want to discover for myself what I like, rather than letting the dumb algorithms choose that for me. ("Just nod or shake your head and we'll do the rest... welcome to the internet.")
