Do you remember AOL, MySpace, or Path? Well, they’re old news now and the content on them are long gone. What doesn’t go away though is your personal website, and that’s why I’m adopting IndieWeb.
The idea around IndieWeb is that your content belongs to you. You don’t compose content on BlueSky, Medium, or Substack. Instead, the system of record is your website that uses HTTP and RSS to share and distribute your content. Relying on protocols instead of hopping to the next social platform is as stable as it gets. HTTP will never go away, but Substack will eventually.
In 2013, I wrote my first blog post. Back then, I used Github’s Pages, and I would manually post links to social media. IndieWeb has a system for this workflow called POSSE.
POSSE stands for Publish on your own Site and Syndicate Everywhere. One of the implementation details mention that the best user interface is invisible. It also says that it’s automatic. I like this guidance so I fired up Cursor, pressed command-i, and told an agent to setup POSSE. Use Github actions and use Dlvr to post everywhere. In minutes, I had POSSE setup. The initial effort is fast and you get to keep your content forever.
One cool thing about publicly writing is when someone you meet in-person mentions an old post. It gives you a renewed energy to commit to writing. There are other benefits I’ve enjoyed as well.
Writing has helped me better understand stuff. It forces you to write arguments down and recognize assumptions. This is likely the single biggest reason for continued investment.
I’ve found that I also get over my fears of saying something stupid or pissing people off the more I post. It’s a lot like public speaking. But putting your writing out there is far more rewarding than not saying anything at all. Once you get over your fears, you begin to find your voice and produce.
In other words, going independent on the web has huge upside. And preserving your content by adopting IndieWeb principles and protocols makes it permanent.
So, while slop takes over the internet. I’ll be over here in the corner typing out thoughts.
Who knows. Maybe IndieWeb community will become cool.
Published