Disclaimer: as for most posts that start with a question, possibly an inflammatory one, the answer is likely to be "no".

Unnecessary context: I am just back from the second Edinburgh Homebrew Website Club (thanks again to James for organising), which has almost doubled in attendance and in interesting topics. Returning from the event requires cycling uphill, which requires a shower. Shower plus interesting topics begets stream of consciousness. Stream of consciousness begets internet rant. Expect a lack of solid arguments in what follows.

At one point in at today's HWC, the question came up: "Thinking about IndieWeb 'tech', what have you adopted". We had a 7-strong sample of skilled tech people (compared to the average population), who have owned, built and rebuilt a mix of websites since 1995. The answers varied in depth, but aligned along the line of "I had a look, I gave it a try, it's complicated." This pattern-matches other discussions I have been spectator to in the past, so the question pops up in a corner of my mind: have these technologies failed to achieve what they wanted to achieve? Well... that depends on what the aim was. I can't say for sure, but in my mind I see an attempt to rebuild the features offered by social networks in a distributed fashion, free of monolithic platforms and closer to the idea of a web of individuals. In this context IndieWeb 'tech' appears to be successful: the features are working, and there exists a network of websites and people connected by this fabric.

And yet, the network is exclusive. The discriminant seems to be the amount of time that people can dedicate to seed, nurture, connect the many moving parts required to be part of this network. Even partial membership requires a high literacy, and dedication. As I write this, I notice the assumption: a wider, more inclusive IndieWeb is better, is what we should aim for. My gut reaction is that this is indeed the IndieWeb philosophy, but the technology somehow ended up misaligned. I don't know if this is a result of the "I am building for my own needs" starting point (for the relation between individualism and an inclusive society, see the internet), or an unavoidable result due to the complexity of the problems to solve. So the original question deflates, and leads to more questions for which a shower cannot give answers.

The other strand of thought that comes to be is that the social-network-web is an assumption. Some people don't care, many are happy to use a third-party for those connections. Even removing the social bit, there is so much potential to the web of individuals (vs of communities), which is currently squandered into short-lived silo content. The IndieWeb is meant to include these websites and people as well, but I feel the resources and software available are not there, or the bar is too high. I'm thinking Frontpage or Flash (grey-beard, yep) levels of ease, tools that people could pick up and create something with before reading a 3000-word tutorial. The tutorial would still come later.

So has the IndieWeb failed in this context? Well, I don't think the question applies: there is no one initiative, and there is no initiative with a time limit. It's still a vague idea that needs shaping. But I think some energy needs redirecting, some guidance clarified. The social-network-web is a subset of the web, which requires higher literacy and time investment. Making this the entry point of the IndieWeb, I think, leaves out a large number of people.

So where is this going? Not very far for today, but accumulates and will probably contributes to small actions. 'Journey of a thousand steps' and all that.

Stream of consciousness dry 👋