I’ve switched over to this Wordpress instance to share ideas, news, images with the world. It’s been a while but I think I’ve settled on something I like.

Before: I paid for hosting, but didn’t post much. I had trouble understanding the process of maintaining and accessing files and databases through the cPanel. I’d usually just give up after a while.

I started self-hosting some services (Mastodon, etc). Learning how to do this has been really eye-opening with regards to how much data, trust, money, and time we hand over to large web/social/cloud services. Some of that is worth it. Google drive is easy to use, and guaranteed to work. My Nextcloud server running on a microcomputer is going to be less stable that a series of server farms distributed across the world. I love LinkedIn for a lot of reasons (disclosure: I also work there). When deciding how to live my digital life, I understand the choices I have. I think that’s key: understanding that there are options, and what it is that you’re giving up when you opt into convenience.

So here I am, moving away from a lot of the big social, web, and cloud services that I was rooted in after many years, and owning my data. If I need to change something on my server, it’s in the room next to me. Sometimes it’s tricky, and I’ve had a lot of experimentation, successes, failures, and long nights, but I am excited about taking control of a lot of what I do online, owning the real estate myself, and pulling back to something closer to the original vision of what the internet could be.

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/green-circuit-board-with-clear-glass-case-163073/