From 6b742c459266b18e2b375b35205ce8a6c02f0452 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bradley Taunt Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2024 08:05:12 -0400 Subject: Initial commit --- posts/self-hosted-blogs.md | 31 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 31 insertions(+) create mode 100644 posts/self-hosted-blogs.md (limited to 'posts/self-hosted-blogs.md') diff --git a/posts/self-hosted-blogs.md b/posts/self-hosted-blogs.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a330b90 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/self-hosted-blogs.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +# What Happened to Self-Hosted Blogs? + +2018-10-18 + +I remember a time on the internet1 when everyone and their grandmother was running a personal blog. And I mean *personal* - not hosted on some side platform or a tacked-on addition to the rest of their website. + +Nowadays companies and individuals alike use platforms like Medium to host and promote all of their articles, essays and case studies. I understand the draw, and can even list out the positives: + +1. A large community already exists under the Medium brand +2. It's easy to promote your own work and follow others +3. The platform is fairly easy to setup and implement + +Unfortunately this has had a pretty severe impact on the blogging community as a whole - no one controls their own blogs anymore. I remember when finding a new blog was an interesting and fun experience: + +- how did they decide to layout the page design? +- what typefaces have they decided to use? +- what back-end are they using? +- how does it look and feel on mobile? + +These custom self-hosted blogs inspired other developers and designers to create their own blogs or tweak current ones. In a way it was a small factor in pushing what we could do on the web further and further, as designers engaged in friendly competition trying to one-up each others' creations. + +I also believe this inspired people to write better content instead of opting for clickbait garbage in order to get "featured" or boosted promotion on the main blogging platform. But I don't even think that's the worst to come of this mass-migration to a singular blogging platform. + +**All2 blogs look identical now.** I'm not sure if that was Medium's intention, but either way I personally think it's horrible. The individual personality of most design and development blogs has been completely stripped away. + +Maybe I'm just a salty designer with a narrow-minded, pessimistic view on where our blogging communities seem to be heading - or maybe I just have higher standards. + +## Refs + +1 the design world of the internet
 +2 by "All" I mean the majority -- cgit v1.2.3-54-g00ecf