#slow web

A lot of people have realized this and are unhappy about it. Since you're reading the inaugural issue of Good Internet magazine, you're almost certainly one of them. But what can you do? How can you be in the feed and not be carried away by the feed?

I tried to control the feed. Used hashtags and block lists to focus it. Forced myself not to click. Stopped for a moment to breathe before I replied.

But the feed never stops flowing, never stops pushing. Resisting that flow is a constant act of will. It requires vigilance. It requires maintenance. It's exhausting. And in the end, the feed always wins. So I opted out. Left the feed.

It doesn't have to be this way and for a long time it wasn't. I remember the early internet. The internet I grew ...

Okay look, I already feel like a crotchety old man. I've probably mischaracterized social media at least 5 times. I might have even said something like "the facebook." I don't know and I'm afraid to go back and check.

So what I desperately want to say here is "the internet I grew up with," but I was already in my 20s when we all set gopher aside and started checking out this newfangled "world wide web." I'm not here to lie to you. The reality is that I am getting old and I was always just a little bit crotchety. Let me just adjust in my rocking chair and get back to writing.

I assure you that you're welcome on my lawn.

The internet I came to love was quieter. Smaller – which is not to say small. It was still vast, but it was a vast collection of small sites instead of a small collection of vast sites.

I spent a lot of evenings and nights reading people's sites. As I did, I learned all sorts of things. For instance, those Star Blazers and Battle of the Planets cartoons I loved as a kid were called anime and the form had come a long way! (You might want to check it out.)

I loved learning about what people loved. A new site was a cause for joy. A new post a source of wonder. I started to notice that for everything someone loved, there were a lot of other people who also loved that thing. If you spent a little time reading about a topic, you'd find links to other sites by other people who were writing about it. Invariably, you'd find a community. Bands, technologies, comics, philosophies - it didn't matter. There were a bunch of people with websites about it and a bunch more hanging out on an IRC channel or a forum dedicated to it. (If it was a forum, it was probably running phpBB.)

But as the sites were replaced by feeds, the learning was replaced by reacting. The joy by fatigue. The wonder by indifference. The communities by hashtags.

I left the feeds, but I never stopped missing the internet they replaced. Every now and then I'd spin up a website in an attempt to recreate a small piece of it, but after a few months I'd drop it.

At the beginning of the year I decided to try again to build a website. But then I decided I'd probably just drop it in a few months again, so I decided to look for a platform instead. Then I got annoyed with myself for giving up on the website idea before I'd even started, so I went back to it. Then I decided to scrap the first website and rebuild it in a different way. It was a pretty indecisive few weeks, but in the midst of all my waffling I realized that a lot has changed since the last time I did this, so I started doing some research. As I was learning how people build websites in 2025, I found some references to something called the "IndieWeb."

Perhaps the biggest change since the last time I built a website is that there are a lot of people talking about building personal websites now. At the IndieWeb wiki I found a link labeled Visit a random site. I clicked it and an hour vanished. I went back and tried again. Similar result.

I discovered a webring and – wonder of wonders – an IRC channel! I started to feel that familiar sense of community. Here was a small group of people who were all very passionate about a very specific topic. The more I read, the more motivated I was to tinker with my own site and get posting. So I did. I got up and running and made my first post and something refreshing happened.

Nothing.

Nobody responded. Nobody reacted. Nobody requested to follow me. Nobody pretended to want to follow me so they could try to sell me something. Yet despite this, I still felt more a part of a community than I had in years. In the quiet, I've been able to think about why that is.

If I only ever bump into you at parties, I'm never going to get to know you. I'll only know the things that you can shout over the din, that you don't mind everyone else knowing. I'll know some things about you but I won't know you. We may become acquaintances - even strong ones. I might think fondly of you and look forward to seeing you at the next party. But we'll never be friends.

When I make a new friend, it isn't fast and it isn't loud. My strongest relationships all developed over time. They grew in quiet moments: over coffee, on a walk, playing a game, discussing something inspiring or something repulsive. In these moments I can learn who you are instead of what you want to project.

When I was in the feeds, it was like always being at a party: all activity and noise. Everything came at me fast. I made a lot of connections, but they were tenuous and when they were gone I didn't feel much sense of loss.

Discovering the personal web has been more like making a new friend. I've stumbled across a community that I feel a kinship with. It's energizing. I want to get to know everyone and try to do everything, but I'm fighting that impulse. Or at least, I'm fighting the impulse to try to do it all now.

Instead, I've decided that my personal web is going to be a slow web. I'm taking those tentative next steps to deepen the relationship. Sharing a bit more of myself. Hoping it won't be rejected. Listening. Always listening.

I've posted to my site 5 times since I started it in January and one of those is a copy of a guide I wrote 20 years ago. I spun up a Mastodon instance and have followed a grand total of 4 people. I read a few blog posts a day - things I find on the IndieWeb stream or through shares on Mastodon. It's not a lot, but it's enough to make me feel a part of something. I haven't felt that in a long time.

I'm not writing this to say that this is the right way to "do the personal web." One of my favorite things about the personal web is discovering all the different ways that people make it their own. This is the one that works for me. I find that by keeping the web slow, I'm able to build the kind of relationship with it that I have with my friends. There are things we disagree on. Some people are more dogmatic than I. Some are more optimistic about AI. We don't share all of the same interests. I don't get the appeal of 88x31 buttons or garish colors.

But outside of the rush and the noise of the feeds, my reaction to these differences has changed. When someone here holds a position I disagree with, they have time and space to explain the reasons why and I have time and space to understand those reasons - even if I don't agree in the end. When someone is interested in something I'm not, I still can't help but be inspired by their enthusiasm even if I'm not inspired by the object of that enthusiasm. This is how my strongest relationships have developed. The similarities create bonds. The differences catalyze growth.

So I plan to stick with the slow web. I do worry about missing out on things. There's so much to discover here and it's hard to suppress the urge to try to absorb it all at once. But I also know that it'll be here next week, or next month, or next year. My hope is that if I keep building a slow web, so will I.