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seeing little pockets of independence flourishing
2026-06-14
Lately, I have been seeing more and more interest in this wonderful thing we call the Smallweb. If you have spent much time reading my ramblings, you are probably already aware about the concept of the Smallweb (aka the indie web) and how it frees you from the "corpo web", or the parts of the internet run by huge companies, where you are essentially renting your space online and have no true control over it.
The Smallweb is anywhere you find online where someone is running their own sites, hosting their own apps, their own platforms, all without corporate control or oversight. This can lead to anything from something looking like the very site you're on right now, simple HTML/CSS pages with someone tending their digital garden and throwing out their thoughts about whatever topic might be on their mind. Or it could be some completely wacky, off-the-wall site where someone is having fun and experimenting with new ideas. There is no "approved format" for what makes a smallweb site a smallweb site. The only requirement to be part of the smallweb is that you are participating in a decentralized space, off of the chains of those big corporate platforms. You're an internet landlord, as we say around here.
This year, especially, I have seen more and more interest in the smallweb as a concept. People becoming interested in the Gemini protocol, people becoming more interested in open social systems like the Fediverse and Nostr. People becoming interested in decentralized communication protocols such as Matrix. Even a new, Hacker News-like site called Bubbles has sprung up allowing you to see new stories from around the smallweb, garnering a good bit of attention. A great indie search engine, Kagi, even has their own smallweb directory these days. Another HN-like blog aggregator, Blogosphere, is a great way to discover indie blogs as well!
I have been discovering cool new blogs and bookmarking them left and right (some of which end up on my curated directory of sites I like!). I've even seen a resurgence of people using RSS and joining webrings. What a wonderful sight to behold! These brilliant "web 1.0" conventions from the 90s and early 2000s are being vindicated!
I have been preaching about the importance of the smallweb and breaking the chains imposed on you by the 'corpo-web' for quite some time now. I love finding these places online where people are building their own ideal space in their corner of the internet. I think a lot of people are getting tired of the constant constraints of the "corpo-web": The censorship, the lack of privacy, the lack of any meaningful control over "your" space, the shoving of useless AI features everywhere you look. The "enshittification" of the corpo-web has never been more real, and I believe it is fueling a nice exodus of people to the smallweb.
The best part about the smallweb? You don't need anyone's permission to begin building something of your own. You just need to have an idea of something you want to do, and do it! You can write up your own blog, you can begin building your own digital garden, or whatever else you want to do! It is your space, after all! You can write it up in vanilla HTML/CSS, you can use a static-site generator, you can build on your favorite framework, whatever you want to do. All you have to do is do it! Host it on a $5/mo VPS, a raspberry pi, or an indie site hosting platform such as Neocities or Nekoweb. Whatever you want to do to begin getting your stuff out there!
Looking to get started? There are plenty of resources to give you a hand if you're brand new to the idea of building something on the internet. Take a look at LandChad, which gives you nice, beginner-friendly walkthroughs on setting things up on your own server. If you're new to HTML/CSS/JS, take a look at Mozilla Developer Network or web.dev to get going! I think once you get it going, you're going to love the adventure, and if you do end up building something, be sure to reach out and let me know about it - I might have to add your site to my directory! :)