Reflections on 25 years of Interconnected

Lovely history and look back on blogging.

Slowly, slowly, the web was taken over by platforms. Your feeling of success is based on your platform's algorithm, which may not have your interests at heart. Feeding your words to a platform is a vote for its values, whether you like it or not. And they roach-motel you by owning your audience, making you feel that it's a good trade because you get "discovery." (Though I know that chasing popularity is a fool's dream.)

Writing a blog on your own site is a way to escape all of that. Plus your words build up over time. That's unique. Nobody else values your words like you do.

Blogs are a backwater (the web itself is a backwater) but keeping one is a statement of how being online can work. Blogging as a kind of Amish performance of a better life.

Oh except that it does work as well as those other platforms, if that's what you want, that's the magic.

Also all the good people are here.

This all warms my heart and I can’t emphasize enough the point of "words build up over time". I treasure my blog (and my newsletter!).