Word Ownership
Today’s Internet is nothing like those first few years of experience I had as a teenager and student in college. I know nostalgia can be strong (and biased), but I have memories of so many friends and acquaintances running their own small websites and forums to share and talk about hobbies, interests, and ideas.
Then, the rise of publishing platforms and social media began. Over time, most voices shifted sharing information via these new lower friction, higher audience venues. As a result, many of us have chosen to share our ideas within the walled gardens of giant corporations. And, while we still own our words there, they are hard to edit, curate, organize, and share.
I have been more recently thinking about this due to the increasing turmoil of modern social media platforms; whether from drastic changes as the result of new owners, or pivots of the business in the continual chase for attention and advertising revenue. The most profound reminder came from a re-post of Scott Hanselman about the power of owning your own words.
I don’t want ideas and topics that I write about to be stuck (and buried) inside the data center of a company that could change their rules at at any time. This doesn’t mean I will stop using social media, but I’m going to focus more time and energy writing for my own space again on the Internet.
This blog has been mostly reserved for the occasional post about how I came to understand and solve some software development problems I have had in the past. I hope to continue those posts, in addition to more general thoughts and experiences around my technical career.