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@Daojoan .. sadly only a few percent can actually do that

@ErikJonker @Daojoan But it would be fun to make it easier for folks to be able to do it!

@Daojoan 20 years hence yes

@Daojoan congrats on going viral

@Daojoan Yup, basically avoid all corporate-sponsored social media and blog sites. We use Wordpress for $99 a year; you can self-host as well. Lots of similar options too.

@Daojoan I don't own my server, but unless my provider would permanently lock me out of my web space (which I can't believe would be legal in the EU), I can always download everything and upload it somewhere else.

Worst case, I might need a new URL to be back in business, but that's it.

@Daojoan yeah that’s fair. I really need to get around to making a website eventually

@Daojoan
Unfortunately, I do not have that possibility.

As an option, however, I have been fastidious in picking out two communities that I have joined, disroot.org and for Mastodon todon.nl. I read up on them before applied (you have to apply to both) and am glad to be a member of both progressive communities.

Doing everything yourself is one option, but sometimes creating or being part of a community, syndicate or union is also a great option.

@Daojoan Be a sysadmin even if you never wanted to be. Learn CSS, learn HTML, no Javascript though. Mitigate spammers. Know more than you ever wanted about websites and swear to never make it an unpaid job again.

@Daojoan

True, and use open source for that so we keep independent from manipulation by few.

@Daojoan
Before Facebook the internet was an online high street where everybody was responsible for managing their shopfronts and sold their wares from their own premises

@Daojoan #selfhost
yunohost provides you almost all of them on one platform.
https://yunohost.org @yunohost

@Daojoan I have done that and I am too chronically ill to do that again

(I can't even bring myself to host a Mastodon instance, knowing how much effort it will require--time I could, say, spend with my girlfriend--to achieve a slightly worse outcome than what I have now)

@Daojoan Can I add one more? Please please stop sending Fecesbook messages or whatever instead of using email.

@Daojoan own your own domain. Not your point but a valid piece of advice.

@Daojoan Own your own romain name with a Website host and e-mail server. I got mine from local company over 20 years ago. Website is out of date, life intervened and coding got more complicated than my brain can grasp, but I'll get back to it. Be careful of getting one from nationsl companies. Read TOS to know you own it and it's registered to you, not the company.

Anyone here know Google map code? I need to update maps. I'll pay good rate to convert few I can learn to do rest.

@Daojoan https://www.ethicalhost.ca/manager/aff.php?aff=146

@Daojoan Carpe Platform.

@Daojoan Doing that. One downside that has evolved since the heyday of blogging: Google, Verizon, Microsoft, Yahoo et al. have effectively broken email that is not hosted with a Big Guy. They drop messages on the floor without notification to anyone if it comes from the likes of Digital Ocean, Linode, etc.

@Daojoan @j_angliss totally agree, and if you own/manage it yourself, someone else doesn’t own your data especially if it’s self-hosted

@Daojoan I'm a designer-maker and realised early on how important it was having my own website, even before there was Etsy. After a friend helped me to start in 2004, I taught myself how to code: I can create a piece, photograph and put it in my website - how great is that! SEO is a pain but what I hear now from those who put their time on Etsy and are now getting screwed is much worse. #DesignerMaker #coder

@Daojoan We will all learn this!

@Daojoan Yes! I've had control of my blog/web site for over 25 years. It's been around longer than many social media sites.

@Daojoan I'm a fan of WordPress (but I'm not pushing that), but this is sage advice. WordPress comes with all the RSS feeds built in. You can self host your mailing list and Newsletter with some thing like Sendy (et al.). The platforms have motives, which are unlikely to be aligned with yours. Does it take more work? Yes. But it's worth it!

@Daojoan

Takes 20 seconds to visit
http://brander.ca

which completely Doxxes me at the top left, and to the right of that is my message explaining why you are looking at plain HTML.

It's because at most other sites, you are looking at a corporately-owned product to which one person imagines ownership because they handed the corporation free content to keep.

Whereas I actually own my own web site.

Not concerned with prettiness or number of viewers, compared to that.

@Daojoan 10000% true, that's what I have been saying for years too:

https://stop.zona-m.net/tag/rss

and:

1) THE reason why, when I was FORCED this year to pass through #substack, I did it in this way, as just a NO-paywall distributor for what will eventually return on my blog: https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/i-just-started-a-newsletter-and-its

2) what I recommend to all "professional communicators": https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/what-we-should-all-learn-by-a-famous

@Daojoan nowadays twe should add: own your own cloud (nextcloud), own your own mailserver (literally thousands), own your own vpn (any good vds)

@Daojoan In order for this to be a truly viable reality, the FOSS community needs to massively step up their code privacy, security, and reliability practices. The average user cannot be put into the position of self-hosting insecure software without risking disaster.

Are you aware of the recent #SMTPSmuggling revelation scandal? That is the future to which you would doom everyone.

@Daojoan and control and own your own your social media, like mastodon instance. I hope that one day I will have the "life management" and "technical skill set" to do all this.

@Daojoan we do, and we'll not change any of that any time soon :D.

@Daojoan I’ve been saying that since before Facebook was a gleam in Zuckerberg’s eye! Make sure the core of your online presence is yours.

@Daojoan Wholeheartedly agree – we all benefit when this happens – except for two small points:

* There is a fairly obvious barrier to entry here. Not everyone I would like to read online has the skill to do this.

* There is also a financial cost (depending on your ISP, skills etc) that may be greater than the value to you of doing it this way.

@Daojoan own your XMPP server & MUC for real-time chat

@Daojoan I still don't own my domain. Because I need to rent it.

@Daojoan Autarky is good. I like it.

@Daojoan works great until some big DNS service lets someone else claim your IP address as their MX; suddenly GMail stops accepting mail and places like Slack stop sending.

@Daojoan@mastodon.social I just use an ActivityPub software (microblog.pub) as it allows people to follow me and get my stuff along side their existing feed, and it comes with an RSS feed built in

Owning your own shit is best though, regardless of what software you choose! (Even no software!)

@Daojoan oh gosh - do I ever hear you. Why oh why do people think that a FB page is a good way to reach people?

@Daojoan Couldn’t agree more! And it’s the reason I started a free newsletter about it called #OwnYourWeb:
https://matthiasott.com/newsletter