Don’t Rent, Own

I’m compelled to write something about social media, personal websites, independence. This comes from reading all the bitching about how awful Facebook, Google, Twitter, AI and all the other Big Corp web is. The bitching, plus a longstanding aversion to using BigCorp for communicating.

I agree about the awfulness, but I don’t waste my time bitching about it. I use social media, but understand its limitations. Its basic limitation is, it’s not mine. I don’t own it. Rather, it owns me. Whatever I post at Facebook or other social media platforms is hoovered up by Big Corp so they can build a model of me and relentlessly sell shit to that discorporate model. They also sell my personal information to other Big Corps. They also can just shut me down whenever they feel like it. It’s also designed to be addictive, yay. All one big happy cycle of enshittification.

So, I have a personal website or two (or a dozen). It’s the only way to own my personal presence on the web. I can do pretty much any kind of website thing – blog posts, pages, images, whatever.

www.kevinpadanhayes.com, where you’re reading this right now, or should be reading it, is my primary site, and it’s all mine. It’s almost entirely under my control – the domain name, which is my actual full name, the publishing platform, the web host, everything. Nothing on Big Corp’s servers. Costs me about $100 a year.

I see lots of my creative or small business friends who don’t have any real presence on the web, just a spot on Facebook or Instagram, and think to myself “They could do much better, they need their own place”. I see lots of my politically active friends doing the same and wonder “Why are they advocating for change on Big Corp’s website?”

Having your own place isn’t too hard. Yes, it’s technical, but it doesn’t have to be too technical, and people are available to advise – me being one of those people. It also isn’t free. Remember, if you aren’t paying for a service, you’re not a customer, you’re a product. You’re making money for Big Corp. And BigCorp is my word for those insane billionaires who are fucking everything up right now.

But it also doesn’t have to cost a bunch. I can set people up with their own WordPress website for less than $70 a year. Personal email with your own domain, less than $20/year. Domain name, $10/year. Total, less than $100/year. Simple, secure, performs well. Yes, you can do it cheaper or free, but I don’t advise doing that. You get what you pay for.

Now, I have little bandwidth to do this setting up, but I’m happy to give free advice and will probably write up a guide to doing it yourself. I’m looking into offering it as a service, to a select group of people. I wouldn’t be making any money on the deal, as I’m not Big Corp and don’t have to relentlessly pursue profit.

Comments are welcome, either emailing me at moc.seyahnadapnivekobfsctd@nivek or commenting when this post gets posted at Facebook Big Corp. If you’d like me to make you an offer for having your own place on the web or just advise you based on my experience, let me know.