Something old becoming something new again

The late-1990s web was a place of glorious, unpolished chaos. Before algorithms decided what you should look at, and before internet culture was consolidated into a handful of corporate data-silos, we didn't just consume the web, we built it.

Lately, there has been a quiet but unmistakable shift. People are dusting off text editors, claiming their own domain names, and building personal websites once again (like this one). After years of feeling like tenants on major social media platforms, a collective return to digital self-building is underway, and it is a wonderful sight to see.

The Era of the Hand-Coded Web

In the late 1990s, the barrier to entry was a basic understanding of HTML, an FTP client, and a dial-up connection. We didn't have profile templates; we had blank pages. We built entire networks of independent sites, stitched together not by automated recommendation engines, but by hand-curated "webrings", banners, and explicit link lists. You put a link on your site because you genuinely liked what someone else was doing, creating an organic web of discovery.

This decentralised network gave rise to a unique genre of internet expression: the "Everything & Nothing" website. These were personal portals containing whatever crossed the creator's mind... a mix of daily journals, random thoughts, poetry, media reviews, and niche hobby collections. They didn't have a specific niche, an optimised keyword strategy, or a target audience; they were simply digital extensions of the self. I ran one for years, and even eventually created a content management system using PERL; and then eventually porting that to early versions of PHP. Because I was part of a webring, eventually that system was used by a swathe of people because I offered it for free on my own website.

Eventually, this format evolved, streamlined, and gained a new name: blogging. But the core philosophy remained rooted in complete ownership of one's digital space.

Surfing vs. Scrolling

The biggest difference between that era, and the modern social media landscape is how we experienced the internet. We used to genuinely surf the web. Following a chain of hyperlinks from one personal site to another felt like an exploration. It required active engagement, curiosity, and a bit of serendipity.

Contrast that with the current reality of "walled gardens". Modern social media platforms are designed to keep you trapped within their boundaries, feeding you an endless, passive scroll saturated with meaningless advertising, sponsored content, and algorithmic feeds optimised for outrage. You don't choose what you see; an corporate algorithm decides what will keep your eyeballs on the screen longest to sell the next ad spot. Moving away from these platforms is an act of digital sovereignty, privacy, and a reclaimation of what is a shared digital space.

Real Connections in Decentralised Spaces

There is a common misconception that social media made the internet more connected. In reality, it often just made it noisier.

Back when we interacted across independent personal websites, through guestbooks, weblog comments, and mutual linking, the connections were deeper. Because it took effort to maintain a site, write an entry, and visit someone else's domain, the interactions were deliberate. It was through this slow, intentional web that many of us made lifelong friends across the world. You weren't just a handle, an avatar, or a metric in someone's follower count; you were a peer with your own patch of digital land.

Building is Easier Than Ever

What makes this modern resurgence so exciting is that we are no longer constrained by the technical clunkiness of the past. In the 90s, keeping a site updated meant manually editing raw HTML files, wrestling with broken tables, csv databases, PERL (and that's if your hosting supported CGI-BIN's), and uploading everything file-by-file via flaky FTP connections (with everything sent in plain-text urrghh).

Today, the ecosystem for self-hosting, and private infrastructure has matured immensely, making digital self-reliance highly accessible:

• Static Site Generators: Tools like Hugo, Eleventy, and Astro allow you to write content in simple Markdown, automatically compiling it into lightning-fast, secure websites without needing heavy, vulnerable databases.
• Modern Self-Hosting Ecosystems: Platforms like Umbrel, CasaOS, and Coolify have turned complex server administration into elegant, one-click experiences. You can easily host your own site, analytics, and data storage from a small computer in your living room.
• Streamlined Deployment: Git-based workflows, and decentralised hosting, mean that updating your personal site is now as simple as saving a text document, with the system handling the distribution automatically.

Why the Return Matters

Seeing people reclaim the web by building their own sites is incredibly encouraging. It marks a return to an internet that is:

• Autonomous: You control the design, the layout, and the data. No abrupt terms of service change can suddenly erase your archive.
• Ad-Free (by choice): Personal sites exist because someone wanted to create something, not because they wanted to monetize your attention.
• Authentic: Without the pressure to optimise for "engagement metrics", "shares", or "likes", people write more honestly, and build more creatively. These aren't hot-takes based on rage, or emoition; and becaus of that, they have have more value, and meaning.

The corporate web isn't going anywhere, but the resurgence of the personal website proves that the original spirit of the internet never truly died. It was just waiting for us to remember how good it felt to build something of our own.