return to the small web
This post originally appeared on my website
I was born shortly after the peak of the dot com bubble, after which point "google" became a verb and "facebook" was no longer something collecting dust in the attic. During this period, it felt as though the noisy construction of the modern Web was occurring in the next city over and not yet in the quiet towns where most of us resided. Recently, following the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us experience (social) media fatigue, and it lulls us back to when the Internet was more peaceful. To a time when most communication happened over email or XMPP, when we "followed" people by subscribing to their RSS feeds, and when a personal homepage was an extension of self.
This nostalgia for a simpler and more personal Internet is a driving factor behind what is known as the "small web" or "indie web." The small web is a loosely defined philosophy which promotes decentralization, user agency, and community. It does not intend to displace the tech giants of today, but instead it empowers people to host their own content and collaborate through alternative platforms. Many concepts and technologies fall under this umbrella: personal blogs, community forums, webrings, federation, etc. The ideology bears an intrinsic link to open-source software; and its echoes are audible in the alternative web protocol Gemini, federated platforms such as Mastodon and Lemmy, public-access UNIX boxes (also referred to as tilde communities), and more.
In this vast digital universe, the small web represents a commitment to authenticity. It encourages us to embrace the beauty of imperfection, celebrate individuality and diversity, and connect authentically. While it's quite possible that I'm just a corny nerd missing his childhood, I do hope to see others getting excited about this concept. At any rate, this little corner of the Internet is mine, and I intend to make something out of it.
