Build a bridge to your corner of the web

I was not on the old Twitter (just Twitter?). I mean I was there, but not really posting there.

Twitter used to be very good at this thing, where it was basically the customer care for a lot of these companies. These companies had other channels as well, but if you tagged them there, you may or may not get a response. If you tagged them on Twitter, or DM'd them, you would get a response. This is the reason why I had a Twitter account, to complaint, ask for support. And it used to work brilliantly. I got my lost Kindle back thanks to Twitter!

I was not posting things on Twitter, so I do not understand the pain people feel now, when they are having to leave all of their content behind, thanks to Elon. Or, politics. Or, whatever.

I did use to post on Facebook, but I stopped doing that, because I did not want to suffix all my posts with 'Hey! This is a joke.'

The only platform, if it were to tank tomorrow, I would be sad about, is Instagram. That is also the reason why, I am still on Instagram, even though it has transformed into a shopping app. There is nothing like it. Plus, network effects. All my friends are on IG.

I read - don't build your castle in other people's kingdom today. There are rules, Chris talks about:

1. Build your castle on land you own.
2. SHAMELESSLY USE THE OTHER KINGDOMS JUST LIKE THEY ARE USING YOU!
3. Always move people back to your kingdom, never to another kingdom.
4. Operate like your castle can get shutdown tomorrow
5. Be suspicious of new kingdoms that give away easy visibility
6. Give good reasons to go back to the Castle in your Kingdom. And be persistent!

Most of this makes sense. I believe in open standards. I have always had a website. I did self-hosting for a bit. From the colophon:

I started blogging back in college (around 2012). I had a Blogger site for a while, but I don't think I posted anything there that was worth scavenging. I move to WordPress soon after that. Or, simultaneously. I used the default free version for a WordPress site for some time.

I purchased a .com domain at some time, when I wanted to take this seriously.

Then, I moved to a .net domain, which is where you are now. 
But WordPress was slow. Or so I read everywhere. So, I moved to Ghost. First, a self-hosted version on AWS LightSail, using docker compose. But it was an effort to get everything working. There were challenges, mostly around getting email to work. I found myself spending too much time keeping things running, than doing the actual writing.

So in April, 2021 I moved to Ghost Pro. And have been on it ever since.

Platforms are finicky. They may change rules on a whim. Their ownerships might change. They may enshittify.

1. You should have your website (not substack) on a domain you own.
2. Social media is like shouting in the ether. Trying to find people with hashtags and such. They may follow you there, but they are not really yours.

Most of my posts on Threads and Mastodon are links to my blog and a little bit about the post. They are bridges to my corner of the web. Hopefully, some of the people subscribe to you directly.

Even if they don't, if the platform goes down or bad, you still own your content. Everything is yours. If your hosting company goes down, you can take your website to a different host.