
Run Your Own Website - zacssite
https://zacs.site/blog/own-your-platform.html
======
okaleniuk
I do run my own site. Moreover, I do all the coding, styling, and layout
manually and without any 3rd-party libraries or frameworks. Or even in-house
libraries for that matter.

This works for me in terms of freedom. I can do interactive plots, quizzes,
games and all kind of programmable things I can imagine. No restrictions.

In fact, I left Medium because I was restricted to text and images only. I
want more. I want words and buttons:
[https://wordsandbuttons.online](https://wordsandbuttons.online)

But it's not really aligned with the reasons from the post. It's not a resume.
It would have been an awful resume. I wouldn't hire myself by this resume.

And keeping record is, of course, nice. But it has nothing to do with running
your own website. You can keep record on Medium, too. In fact, it would be
more effective since it works wonders for the small notes.

Still, I totally agree that keeping your own site is a fascinating experience
and it's well worth time and effort.

~~~
llao
FYI your font-size is uncomfortably huge, I can see maybe 25 lines of text on
my desktop screen. It feels like I should step backward a meter or two.

~~~
coldpie
Enormous fonts is a trend in modern web design for some reason. I browse most
sites at about 66% zoom. Get used to the Ctrl+- shortcut.

~~~
rolph
My personal page has a front end font size range in 30s and 40s.

ive done that because mobile reading the page would see microdots instead of
characters at 14 pt font.

i read and access at the ass end, the front is for mobies i havnt wanted to
use JS to check and set font as i really dont want to build a JS site.

~~~
maskros
You don't need JS to get a website that behaves properly on mobile. Just add
one meta tag to set the viewport scaling and text will scale properly:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">

~~~
rolph
i did that for a while, ill have to look into finer details, there were issues
with screen rotation breaking the formatting, so i might have to redo the CSS;
im looking at gridding the pages, as this seems to be the direction to go for
the next version of the page. I basically want to make the navigation UX a
first person RPG themed frontend. so that the files are accessed by e.g.
moving to the library, talking to the librarian for help or searching for a
document etc. finding the sword of git! slaying the maldragon [not necessary
but if you want to side quest for fun it would be there]

and thanx BTW

------
dwheeler
At least own your domain name and be able to easily move your website content
to whereever you want. I think for most people it's cheaper and more
convenient to use a hosting service, and that's fine... as long as you can
change hosting services.

I've had my personal site ( [https://dwheeler.com](https://dwheeler.com) )
since 1999. As noted in
[https://dwheeler.com/aboutsite.html](https://dwheeler.com/aboutsite.html) my
site has been hosted on 4 different systems, and I'm sure that I will move
again at some point. Users won't notice - or care - because I can easily move
to some other service.

~~~
a1369209993
> At least own your domain name

Serious question: _How?_ Aside from .onion[0], all TLDs I know of only allow
you to rent a domain name, and will take it away if you don't keep paying
their protection racket year-on-year. I would be happy to pay >1000$ to
purchase a (human-readable, second-level, etc) domain, if I could actually
find where to do so.

0: which is less "own" and more "conjure out of the platonic ether something
that no one else is capable of using".

~~~
rolph
try out freedns.afraid.org there is a small fee for a premium private account,
or you can ride on supermans cape for free and make a secondary domain on
those who choose to make thier domain public.

~~~
Thorrez
That doesn't help you own a domain name. That just lets you configure DNS for
domains.

~~~
gjs278
it has free subdomains you can use

~~~
Thorrez
Yes, but that doesn't solve any of the problems that a1369209993 mentioned.
Those subdomains can be taken away from you at any time. You have no legal
ownership of them.

------
CM30
Especially given the number of things platforms like YouTube, Reddit and
Medium are cracking down on/demonetising. For instance, your own host likely
won't boot you off or interfere if you post cybersecurity related
videos/articles, like YouTube started to do a few days ago.

Having your own site provides a backup in case the platforms you use to
promote your work turn on/your industry.

And don't worry about the extra traffic a platform may bring. That's why you
publish on your own site first, then syndicate your content to other services
later.

[https://indieweb.org/POSSE](https://indieweb.org/POSSE)

------
verisimilitudes
I can see why this article with a very basic premise is so popular.

* It's short, so the average reader here has enough attention span for it.

* It's obvious, so that leaves plenty of room for patting oneself on the back.

* It's simple, so one can reference their own writings about a similar topic or related to it in some way.

* It's about a topic that lets the commenter here show off their own website and bloviate about themselves.

This is nothing against the author, but against Hacker News and how so much
interesting material fails to ever reach the front page.

~~~
davesmith1983
This post reads of "Why are people liking what I don't like?".

This article might be stating the obvious to you. However sometimes people
have to be reminded that things can be done simply without the nonsense of
cloud hosting, CDNs, automated deployments and all the guff that comes with
it.

This sort of article is pertinent in the days of many of the large tech sites
being censorious (there was a discussion with 100s of comments about youtube
censoring infosec channels), sites with megabytes of JavaScript and even many
CSS libraries / frameworks requiring a build tools for styling.

Reminding people that it doesn't have to be this way is important and it
doesn't need your approval.

------
superkuh
Yup. People tend to assume running your own site is difficult but running a
static webserver is dead simple. As long as you don't involve all the unneeded
dynamic language and database it's secure and doesn't really need updating all
the time either.

90% of people can run a static web server on their home connection and it
would fulfill their every requirement (as well as solving almost all
'problems' that exist on the web). Home connections of a couple megabits are
certainly fast enough for a personal site.

~~~
coldpie
Mm, nah. Running a DNS server, choosing an HTTP server and keeping all the
related software up to date is a lot to ask even of a techie. And that's not
even getting into dynamic IP issues.

~~~
icebraining
You don't need to run a DNS server, just some utility that updates the record
when your IP changes. There are many, and are quite simple to use (basic text
config, or simple GUI).

As for maintaining stuff updated, unattended-upgrades on a Debian or Ubuntu
LTS system will keep your system patched for five years, and it's very rare
that the infrastructure stuff breaks.

~~~
slx26
maybe that's the difficult part, finding the uncommon path among all the
current trends, clearly distant from these "simple" proposals.

it might be easy to set up if you understand how the web works, but that
understanding generally comes from some real work/experience we already have,
which might not be so easy to pick up.

having 1000 simple ways to run a website could be much more complicated than
having 2 tricky ways to run a website. specially if you don't know whether any
of those ways are simple or not.

------
splitbrain
"your website as a record" resonates with me. I recently redesigned my website
(which is online since 2001) and one new feature I added is a random button.
Clicking it will open a random page which is often a blog post I wrote many
years ago. It's easily the most fun feature for me personally as it makes me
remember things of my life... I don't know how much other visitors use or like
it. If you want, give it a try at
[https://www.splitbrain.org](https://www.splitbrain.org) \- it's the dice in
the menu.

~~~
Theodores
A very nice website. It is rare to have websites of such character these days.
Potentially everyone should be able to have a website that offers up some of
their personality, yours has that, anyone can tell some effort has gone into
it.

The only thing though is that in the contact details there is the 'I get so
many emails that I will probably ignore yours' message. This I don't think is
necessary. It sends out the wrong message. You could have a template or two to
handle enquiries that you don't have time to reply to so you don't discourage
that one person who does want to reach out to you but does value your time
more than their own. Those that don't care about your time will ignore your
'don't bother emailing me coz I am too busy' message anyway.

It is crazy how we have all of these methods of communication but we have all
put up barriers. There was a time when everyone had their name, phone number
and address in the phone book. We used to actually use the phone in those days
too.

------
cardingggg
I totally agree with this. While running and maintaining your own website
isn't trivial enough yet that _anybody_ can just up and do it, it's definitely
something most anyone willing to spend a weekend can pick up and learn, with
maybe a bit of help.

Been considering moving towards a static site generator setup myself, and is
currently looking at Gatsby.

I'm curious though --- barring preference for language, which generator would
you recommend? I keep hearing about Jekyll, Hugo, Gatsby, etc. but haven't
really come across any objective comparisons between options.

~~~
zacssite
It comes down to how much time and effort you want to invest into learning a
new system, which should depend on how many of the advanced features those
systems enable that you will use. For me, that answer was as little as
possible and zero. I just need a good static site generator. There are a bunch
to choose from these days, but fewer back when I was faced with this decision
in the early 2000s, so I wrote my own. If you don't need anything flashy, use
something like my engine (First Crack:
[https://zacs.site/projects.html#firstCrack](https://zacs.site/projects.html#firstCrack))
to build the site and GitHub Pages to serve it. If there's a certain feature
you want that a combo like that does not allow for, find the simplest engine
that meets your needs, learn to use it, then go from there. Most of the big
names are pretty good these days, so you can't really go wrong no matter which
you choose.

------
originalvichy
The title made me hope for a quite literal way to run your website: using some
kind of energy harvesting (bicycle?) used to power a small computer with a web
server.

This is an issue that is quite simple to solve. Many podcasters (espescially
Joe Rogan) like to talk about being afraid of getting removed from a platform
without having your own hosting set up.

Most of the controversial big names of youtube and other platforms can and
should stay as independent as possible. Twitter and others’ aim is to lure as
many people as possible to their platforms. Once you are big enough you should
probably seek out an independent way to distribute content.

~~~
icebraining
If you just want to distribute content, you're better off sharing bittorrent
links. The problem is that those podcasters want the visibility and the ad
money of those platforms. Which is valid, but not something that is solvable
by self-hosting at home.

~~~
PavlovsCat
We need to transition to solutions for it though, and a "hybrid" approach
would be a move in the right direction. i.e. you don't have to leave the
platforms, just make your own website, _too_. Yeah, it's more work, but
nothing good will come of just leaving it to the big players and what they
come up with. To even have leverage, people can't just be completely
dependent, that's a non-starter.

~~~
kyshoc
IndieWeb calls this "Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere"[0].

[0]: [https://indieweb.org/POSSE](https://indieweb.org/POSSE)

------
saagarjha
> Under my definition, you must have 1) total control over your content, and
> 2) the ability to make it public or private at any time.

I run my own website ([https://saagarjha.com](https://saagarjha.com),
naturally) but I can't guarantee either of these. My host (GitHub Pages) can
take down my content at any time if I annoy them enough, and once I make
something public I don't suffer from the misconception that I can make it
private again. I can, however, rehost my content (crucially, _at the same
"location"_), which I think is nearly good enough.

------
ibudiallo
For my personal websites, I only ever tried wordpress around 10 years ago
before I built my own from scratch.

[https://idiallo.com](https://idiallo.com)

What I find interesting is that a swat of new developers thinks that the only
options are:

1\. free hosting with lock-in platforms (medium, blogger, ...)

2\. Clever hacks (github, netlify, cloudflare...)

3\. Expensive hosting ($40/m+)

The alternative is to use shared hosting for simple content. Or cheap but
excellent services like linode, digitalocean, or vultr. They set you back $5/m
or less.

Host your own content, make local backups. If your provider complains, find
another host, copy and paste your content and update the dns.

~~~
derefr
I use the “clever hacks” because I’m afraid of one of my blog articles getting
linked to on Reddit. Even if there are no ads on my site, I want it to stay up
and readable, and I don’t want to suddenly get an egress-bandwidth bill in the
process!

Also, despite having done ops for years, I don’t want _my continued
willingness to do ops_ (as with DO/Linode/Vultr) or _my continued usage of my
small municipal ISP_ (or even _my small municipal ISP’s continued existence_ ,
as these often get bought up, and their branding—including web-host
domains!—gets blown away in the process) to determine whether my site stays
up. I want my website to continue to exist, at the same URL, even if I retire
and go live in the mountains with no Internet for the rest of my life. I want
my works to outlive me!

There are “good” shared HTML hosts that have been around for decades and will
likely be around for decades more—SDF.org is one; most universities with
accounts for alumni are another—but these don’t tend to be able to handle the
bandwidth, so you have to combine them with a service like Cloudflare anyway.

But really, “slug-based static-site build-product hosting” like Github Pages
and Netlify _are_ just shared HTML hosts as well—with some extra features,
sure, but ones that you can ignore if you please. With GH Pages, for example,
you don’t have to use a static-site generator if you don’t want to; you can
just commit content assets directly to your github-pages branch. And the
result has the same properties you list: if Github complains, I can take that
same repo and push it to another site; or it can gracefully degrade to being a
folder (that happens to have a .git dir in it) that I can plop into any
public_html directory.

~~~
ibudiallo
> I use the “clever hacks” because I’m afraid of one of my blog articles
> getting linked to on Reddit. Even if there are no ads on my site, I want it
> to stay up and readable, and I don’t want to suddenly get an egress-
> bandwidth bill!

I use DO. My site often gets linked on Reddit and hn and the $10 service
handles it just fine. One article I wrote recently got 5 million web requests.

------
mmphosis
$12 + tax a year for each domain name. If you know a way around this, let me
know.

Using a single dynamic IP address, if the IP address changes I manually point
the domain names to the new IP address. It's a bit of a pain, but the IP
address really doesn't change that often. I could automate this with a great
amount of time and trouble. I wish the Domain Registrar didn't have such a
crazy panel for configuring such things.

The ISP gave me a simpler version of their modem for what they call "bridge
mode" that doesn't block ports. I'm paying for Internet Service, if they block
ports they are not providing that service. The notion of a server is lost on
me, there are packets being sent and received over the internet, if they block
that they are not providing Internet Service.

Port 80 on the home router forwards to a Raspberry Pi. My outages are when the
power goes out, the IP address changes, or the ISP goes down.

A Raspberry Pi 2 Model B / raspbian runs Apache, I've considered trying others
like nginx. I don't need https and auto-renewing SSL certificates from Let's
Encrypt, if you want to read something everyone can read it. If someone
happens to modify the packets in the middle somewhere out there, so be it. I
don't want you to login, and I definitely don't want your information -- if
you have something interesting maybe I'll find it out there wherever and on
whatever that might be...

~~~
megous
For my home IP I use cname to a dynamic dns service provided by my router
manufacturer.

There are free dyndns services, that integrate with many home router brands.
Then you don't need to automate the main domain A/AAAA record changes, which
can be cumbersome, depending on the provider.

------
logfromblammo
> _" <body style="...;display:none;" ...>"_

Please don't do this. If your website is your resume, and you intentionally
obscure it from me, I'm not going to hire you.

------
melling
Any opinions on what are the best software choices for a single person to use
in 2019 to build a website from scratch?

I’d be willing to learn something new if I knew in 2 years, I’d be extremely
productive.

~~~
__mp
0) Get a cheap virtual/dedicated machine.

1) Install docker and docker-compose

2) Setup traefik, a reverse proxy, in docker (good starting point:
[https://docs.traefik.io/user-guide/docker-and-lets-
encrypt/](https://docs.traefik.io/user-guide/docker-and-lets-encrypt/) ).

3) Run $docker container (ghost, wordpress...). I typically use one docker-
compose file for each domain. "expose" is not necessary because the requests
are proxied by traefik.

Here's a docker-compose sample for a website available under my-website.com:

    
    
        version: '3'
        
        services:
            web:
                container_name: my-website.com-nginx
                image: nginx
                restart: unless-stopped
                volumes:
                    - ./data:/usr/share/nginx/html
                labels:
                  - "traefik.docker.network=web"
                  - "traefik.enable=true"
                  - "traefik.basic.frontend.rule=Host:my-website.com"
                  - "traefik.basic.port=80"
                  - "traefik.basic.protocol=http"
        
        networks:
            default:
                external:
                    name: web
    
    

There are probably more elegant ways to do this, however I found it quite
effective for my setup.

~~~
pnutjam
Nah, just use nearlyfreespeech.net

You get a bsd host with shell access for cheap.

~~~
dvtrn
WOW. You have no idea how much it makes he happy and encouraged to see that
NFS is still making it. They were my first webhost, for price alone, and then
overtime became my default because of the support.

Eventually moved on when my needs evolved and sort of...forgot about them
until this comment.

~~~
0xfeba
I've been with them for about 10 years now. They've increased pricing and
decreased support at the same time. They have introduced (probably 8 years
ago) a static site option which is considerably cheaper.

But moving my static sites to S3 would be considerably cheaper.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
Unfortunately, they discontinued the static site option 2(?) years ago. Now
all sites are dynamic, but my static site costs have barely gone up, so its
all good.

------
madengr
Sheesh, 20 years ago I had a static IP, along with my own server running web,
mail, and DNS servers, in my apartment.

Either things are more complicated these days, or I just got tired of running
it. Probably the latter. Then again, doing something like putting a
downloadable file on Wordpress is difficult. It was easy on my own server.

At least I still have a static IP and my old domain name.

~~~
cr0sh
While you can still do what you did, likely you wouldn't have a static IP - at
least not here in the United States.

Most home connections have a dynamic IP provided by DHCP; now, usually, that
IP won't change (probably tied to the MAC address of the modem or router) -
but it can change. So what most routers provide is a way to report the IP to a
service like "Dynamic DNS" ([https://dyn.com/dns/](https://dyn.com/dns/) \-
which used to be free, and this is first I've learned that it's now an Oracle
project - sigh) - which can then be pointed to as the DNS service for the site
- so if your address ever changes, name resolution will still be available.
Other settings in your router can do various other functions to route the
traffic to-and-from your server.

Which is where it also gets tricky.

Most providers "look the other way" when it comes to servers, provided they
don't get popular. They also block more than a few ports, so you have to work
around that as well (mainly standard ports like 80, 25, etc). But technically,
most TOS contracts with broadband ISPs forbid the running of servers, and they
can pull your connection if they want to for that TOS violation.

The other option would be to sign up for "business class" service with an ISP.
Sometimes you can get this with your current home ISP - for a massively
inflated price (and usually a drop in speed if you want to keep the costs the
same). But usually you are given one or more static IPs, and the ability to
run servers is part of the deal. Not all home ISPs provide this service, but
the big names (COX, Comcast, etc) I believe all do.

Some, though, might throw in another "catch": You can't have business service
to a residential address. This will vary based on your provider; most have
realized the idea of SOHO setups and the need/want for business class service
for these home-based systems. But not all have. So you have to keep that in
mind, as well.

Which is why, instead of going thru all of that hassle (and it really isn't a
minor amount - on top of everything else you have to do to run a home-based
server, plus security, etc) - most people will instead go with some other
hosted solution, a cloud virtual server being the first choice for most today.

Shared hosting is still available, of course, but last I checked, you can't
get use a letsencrypt certificate with these, depending on how they have
things set up (you can still purchase and set up your own certificate - but
that's more money out the door).

Colocation is still an option - but it tends to be (always has been) an
expensive proposition for most, unless you're planning on using it for a small
amount of shared hosting (friends and family?), or you run a business
providing such hosting as part of a package (I worked for an employer who did
this for his clients as part of the custom websites we built - but if they
wanted to host it themselves or with another provider, that was an option). Or
it might be that for certain needs it would be cheaper to build the server
yourself and colo it, than trying to use virtual or cloud hosting for a
similar system (or you want more control over the system - the ability to
visit the data center to upgrade or fix issues can be useful).

So there are plenty of options out there for someone who want to run their own
piece of the internet. Ultimately, though, aside from cloud virtual hosting
services, they all require a fair amount of technical competence that keeps
most away, and even those who have the knowledge sometimes don't want the
administrative and maintenance headaches that come with the territory.

That can be true to an extent even with shared hosting. For instance, I
personally have an old shared hosting account with Hurricane Electric; I was
running a website using PHP and MySQL, and about a year ago (or maybe it's
been longer?) they upgraded their servers to a new version of PHP that ended
up breaking my website something horrible (my website was originally a way for
me to learn PHP years ago, and it never got the love it needed ultimately). I
put up a quick "site broken - sorry" page and left it.

But the truth is, I don't want to have to maintain even that; worrying about
issues with PHP and MySQL, dealing with thoughts of potential attacks, making
sure my stuff is secure, etc. For my site, for what I used it for, all that is
a hassle. Which is why I have been thinking (but have yet to execute) about
going back to a simple static site. If I need comments or discussion (which I
don't know if that is necessary), then I can rig up something with an outside
provider - but ultimately, my pages should just be simple static HTML and some
javascript. Some basic CSS to make things a little responsive, and nothing
else much. I've been giving thought to doing this on a DO droplet; it'd be
much cheaper than my HE hosting, and give me a bit more freedom (plus I can
use an LE certificate).

I think all of this is what holds people back, and makes them seek other
simpler paths; they just want to get something up and shown to the world, they
don't want to deal with all the technical issues, they don't want to have to
worry about security, and they don't want to have to deal with other
complexities. This is why sites like Medium, and other providers (QIX, etc)
have been so successful; they have removed such strain from the equation. Of
course, it has come with more than a few visible, and at times hidden, costs,
that content creators (and users) are beginning to experience, and more
importantly, understand what they have given up.

We're probably in the process - or right on the edge - of yet another shift in
"content hosting" for lack of a better term. Between the censoring on
platforms, and other reasons, there is some shuffling going on it seems. What
I honestly hope comes out of this is a move to distributed content (so-called
"distributed web", for instance) - but I don't think things are quite there
for people to really use it (though some distributed platforms I have seen
really seem to be right on the cusp for adoption - if they can just market it
right).

~~~
madengr
It’s a true static IP; been paying $12 extra each month since 2003. It’s
Consolidated Communications here in Kansas City, and never had an issue
running servers. They actually still provide Usenet too. I keep it static as I
have some SDR hardware I want easy access to.

The only thing that sucks is the way asymmetric 100/5 service. I could get
300/30 with Spectrum, but I don’t want to deal with that headache, and they
would charge me business class. Google and AT&T are dragging their feet on
fiber. It’s a few blocks away still. Seems they move a block every few years.

------
echelon
> [...] Medium, for example, because the company owns all the content you
> publish there.

Is this true? I am absolutely shocked if so.

I would assume Medium might get a license to display your content, but do you
actually transfer your ownership to them by posting? If so, that's dastardly
wicked.

~~~
chrismorgan
[https://medium.com/policy/medium-terms-of-
service-9db0094a1e...](https://medium.com/policy/medium-terms-of-
service-9db0094a1e0f) says:

> You own the rights to the content you create and post on Medium.

> By posting content to Medium, you give us a nonexclusive license to publish
> it on Medium Services, including anything reasonably related to publishing
> it (like storing, displaying, reformatting, and distributing it). In
> consideration for Medium granting you access to and use of the Services, you
> agree that Medium may enable advertising on the Services, including in
> connection with the display of your content or other information. We may
> also use your content to promote Medium, including its products and content.
> We will never sell your content to third parties without your explicit
> permission.

In practice this lets them do literally anything they want with your content.
I’m not sure what lawyers would make of the bit about not selling your content
to third parties, but I cynically imagine that all it takes is for them to
classify such an arrangement as one of their Services and they’re off the
hook. Do note that they did _not_ include the word “non-transferrable”, only
“non-exclusive”.

~~~
Angostura
It looks pragmatic and reasonable to me. You give them the non exclusive
license they need to publish it. You allow them to show ads. You allow them to
use your content in ads. If they get bought, well their successor would have
the same rights.

------
Invictus0
This type of post makes it to the front page pretty frequently, but I think
the audience on hacker News vastly underestimates the difficulty of setting up
a personal site for the general public. There is always the refrain of "but
just use static HTML!", as if anyone even knows what that is, as if it's so
easy to set up a domain and hosting, as if no one even wants a nicely designed
site with images and JavaScript that's easy to maintain. Even as a
technologically literate person, I find the hassle of maintaining my own
static personal website far more onerous than it has to be. Platforms are not
great, but they are the only way that most people will ever interact with the
web.

~~~
cannonedhamster
So for most people that are in the situation you describe I'd say they would
probably just spin up a WordPress instance, pick a theme they like, and start
posting.

A static html site? Even easier. There are tons of services out there that
will let you host your own content for very little money or even free.

You can set up a static site on a platform like 1mb.com for next to nothing
and edit the html, css, etc. To your hearts content. JavaScript mostly runs in
the browser unless you're doing something more complicated than hosting your
blog.

I taught myself HTML by reading source code when I was around 12 (I'm not a
coder by trade). It's not a super complicated language. Nor is CSS. And
there's sites like CSS Zen Garden, w3schools, and template sites all over the
internet that ease that transition.

You talk about that general public, but this is a site mostly of techies, so
it's natural that topics like this would be present here, far more natural
than politics or posts on gossip at least. For the general public it's still
pretty easy with numerous site builders, hosted solutions, etc. that will do
all the heavy lifting for you. If you're not willing to take the time to
learn, there's always someone who will charge you for their experience and
make sure you're set up well enough to do what you need to. It can't be that
hard to do with the proliferation of crackpots, marketers, and homemakers who
are able to set up their own sites effectively.

While I can certainly sympathize and empathize with the idea that as a
community we sometimes don't realize the difficulty in some things, on this
particular topic, I think that between the market and open solutions there's a
wide array of options available for someone to host their own blog with a
number of entry ramps of differing difficulty.

~~~
Invictus0
Home Depot sells a service where you can pay $100 to have a professional
handyman come to your house and knock four nails into your wall to install a
shelf. People pay this because the level of complexity of using a hammer is
too high. I have seen the light go out of the eyes of people with a non-
technical background trying to explain even the most basic of engineering
concepts (most recently, why I can't get a 10lb meterlong brick to magically
lift itself out of its packaging). HTML might be the most simple language we
have, but it's not simple in an absolute sense, and nothing about setting up a
website outside of the platforms really is. Ask your non-technical friends: I
bet most of them are not even familiar with the concept of hosting a site.

~~~
cannonedhamster
I am abundantly aware of the skills of most people. I even addressed exactly
what you said in my response numerous times. I specifically said you can pay
someone to host your site using site builders, templates, etc. None of that
prevents someone from hosting their own site. You seem to be conflating
hosting your own site from building a site from scratch. Chances are if
someone doesn't have the ability to even pay someone to host their site, they
aren't the target for this conversation and your point is essential moot.

~~~
Invictus0
No, you're just not grasping the difficulty here. Every time you introduce a
new vocabulary word, you add cognitive load to learn that definition. Google
"what is hosting" and you will get even more confused when they start talking
about servers. Then they add extras: privacy guard, mail, SSL, even just
getting a domain. To complicate things more, if you ask anyone vaguely
technical for help, they will start talking about how you're getting ripped
off and recommend S3 buckets and FTP access etc etc. These are not simple
things; and I'm not saying all that to say oh, there's some idiots out there
that can't do it; I'm saying this because when I built my own website, at 17
years old and with absolutely no CS background, my personal experience was
that it was a very big learning curve and I think the average person just will
not make it.

With a platform, you just... write. And it just works.

~~~
cannonedhamster
I stand corrected, you have proven that it is impossible for some people to
grasp even basic concepts when determined to do so. I yield that my front line
support for end users of over 13 years provides me no insights into the
average, or even below average user and that your experience setting up a
website at 17 trumps everything. There's just no possible way with good
support some people could set up their own website, blog, or otherwise despite
the fact that so many actually do it every single day. Congratulations on
winning.

------
the_arun
Anyone has interesting themes for Jekyll/Hugo? I liked the layout in this blog
- [https://www.jotaen.net/](https://www.jotaen.net/) However, it is a custom
template.

------
AlchemistCamp
I think this is great advice and I tend to agree with it.

However, TechLead has recently given me pause. He spun up his YouTube channel
and then quickly monetized it by dropping Paypal links into the video
descriptions. He later made a video talking about doing this and how he
thought it was a waste for people wanting to sell dresses, for example, to
build a site with a cart and checkout, etc, instead of just selling right
where their audience already was.

At the size his channel is now, I think it's a bit crazy of him not to have a
site, but he's had larger success as an entrepreneur than I have thus far...

------
buboard
Every creator who relies on internet for income should have their website
separately, there is no excuse, its cheap to get lots of storage , and most
hosting providers are not hellishly censorious like social media. What we need
is a wordpress-like system that allows uploading and tagging everything in a
consisten format with itemproperties. Then, e.g. youtube could autoimport a
videos from the feed when asked to. I dont know if such a system exist, but it
seems pretty obvious that everyone who sells their content through social
media should have an online fallback/backup.

------
provlem
There are various platform like - usercv.com, about.me who provides personal
resume website without coding.

github.io is already there who provides such thing if someone knows coding.

------
Spearchucker
I've been running this since 1995 -
[https://www.wittenburg.co.uk](https://www.wittenburg.co.uk). Most of the
stuff on it isn't public (lists, home photos, documents) and I can't imagine
not having it.

It's super lightweight and yes, I still use HTML tables. Because they're
easier to understand 5 years later than div tags.

------
avaika
Don't forget one small nuance: own website requires much (MUCH) more time for
initial setup, than any other solution as service which is suggested instead.
Especially if it's not a simple static site. And probably for maintenance as
well (but it's debatable). Even for tech guys (especially those, who's not in
webdev).

------
meerita
I run my website too (see profile). I use only Jekyll to compile it locally. I
did my own CSS framework
[https://github.com/meerita/utilcss](https://github.com/meerita/utilcss). I
host it on a DO instance. I deploy it from a local terminal command.

------
marktangotango
What I’d like to see is a geocities but with: database, server side scripting,
caching, memcache, and https free for limited use with a performance and
availability guarantee. What would it take to get this on a massive scale?

~~~
cosmojg
Where would the funding come from?

~~~
cannonedhamster
Cloudfunding? It's like Kickstarter but for projects that are nearly
guaranteed to die. Kind of like how patrons supported art. Most of the stuff
was just workday or average, but every more and then there were gems.

------
aiyodev
This seems like a good place to ask. Are there any free and reliable services
to notify you when your website/web service is unavailable?

------
OrgNet
I do and pay about $10/year for my VPS... so about $20 per year with domain
name (domain names are overpriced)... I'm thinking about going to IP only...
that way it would not crap out when google's DNS goes down...

------
luckylion
And when you do, please consider limiting the width of your content to 60-80
characters.

~~~
mikkei
and 25 lines max so it fits on xterm :)

