December 4, 2024 · 2 minutes read
On embracing the small web
TikTok revolutionizes the way content is delivered to users. They presented the For Your Page mechanism, where content is delivered according to user interests.
However, this leads to addiction to the platform. It’s tough to stop once you’re hooked on it. Even worse, some people depend on this platform for their happiness. They would be happy if their content is curated by the TikTok algorithm for the For Your Page.
This mechanism is also implemented by other social media, even text-based social media like Twitter/X. At the end of the day, the platform owner only cares about the engagement and traction of their apps.
The only problem with the Four Your Page mechanism is that sometimes, the engagement-and-rage-baiting content pops out on our page. It burned me out, especially the stupid content one. So I reduced my activity on X (X vibes have been full of mad recently) and read lots of blog posts, which introduced me to the small web movement.
The small web movement
Turned out, that it was not only me who had the same experience. Many people are tired of the madness of social media like X, who are going back to the old way of publishing content. It’s blogging.
But in the era of the modern web, where the React, Vue, and its frameworks trend arises, a simple blog size could be bloated into several megabytes. It is still tolerable if the blog is intended as a portfolio as a front-end developer, but doesn’t make sense if it’s intended to publish our writings only.
With the network speed being so fast, actually, that wouldn’t be a big problem. But what if we want to read a blog from a limited internet speed access? Or, what if you read 10 blog posts, and each of them costs 2 megabytes to load? You would spend 20 megabytes, just to read a blog post! 😱
That’s the motivation of the small web movement. The web where simplicity and page size matter. The web focuses on the content rather than the fancy design and animation. And I think we should embrace it.
That is one of my motivations for making this platform. I want to have a simple, calm place at the corner of the internet to stay. I want to write longer posts, not limited by the max-280-character rule. The platform that fits my mental model.
If I were to monetize my blog, I probably would open a newsletter subscription or sell digital products like ebooks. It would be great if I could publish a physical book from my blog! For the sake of the blog content, no annoying ads are allowed.