Which Part of the Indie Web Ethos is the Bigger Priority?

Coyote

Although normally spoken about as a cohesive whole, different aspects of the indie web ethos can wind up in tension with each other, which raises the question of which one ultimately takes priority. On the one hand, we have the general interest in onboarding, i.e. helping more people onto the indie web; on the other hand, the issue of onboarding can place some strain on other commonly touted ideals. At the end of the day, which form of independence matters most? And what does the answer entail for our understanding of who the indie web is “for”?

Sharing this blogpost here that I posted earlier this month.

See also ‘Quite Achievable’ For Whom? by Bix Frankonis, a response to A Website To End All Websites by Henry Desroches.

Fran

Thank you! That's an interesting review of... The Problem. We've had touched on the discussion at meet-ups as well, and it's a tough one.

In my mind, today's technology learning curve is too steep. Even the "simplest" static website generator is something from developers for developers.

The late 90s early 00s gave us a fruitful combination of entry-level tech: FrontPage, with all its quirks; PHP, so mingled with content to be a great gateway ~~drug~~ language; free FTP hosting; and computers with scarce content to "consume", making them fertile ground for creativity.

Coyote

Fran Thanks for reading! Yeah, when I tried installing some SSGs a few weeks back, I ran into some kind of npm error and couldn't get them working at all... Like I told someone else, for the scale that I'm working at, it's legitimately easier for me to just hand-code all my own HTML.

Since writing that post I've also written another one about a downside of some commonly-offered suggestions in the form of Pika and Bearblog, which I've seen folks point to a lot as simple options for quickly getting up and running with a text blog. They strike me as decent options, taken for what they are, and I'd recommend them over Bluesky any day, but I expect that they may not appeal to folks who're invested in comment features, and that's something to take into account when pitching recs to beginners.

Coyote

Some further updates on this:

A few weeks ago I posted How LLMs & Chatbots Are Bad For the Indie Web, which has since prompted a chain of response posts on how to conceptualize the indie web:

The Indie Web Is Not Defined by Its Enemies by Khürt Williams
Re: The Indie Web Is Not Defined by Its Enemies by Nicholas A. Ferrell
On Defining the Indie Web By Its Enemies by Coyote (that’s me)
Decontextualising the indieweb isn’t being positive, it’s a form of tech fundamentalism by Leon at This Day’s Portion