alt Hacker Newsthe irony is that the scratch your own itch mindset also explains why indieweb struggles to grow.
there’s nothing wrong with building software for yourself. but if your stated goal is giving everyone ownership over their online identity, then usability stops being marketing and starts becoming part of the mission.
good ux isn’t selling out. it’s removing accidental complexity so more people can benefit from the ideas. otherwise you’re not building an alternative to big platforms, you’re building a club for people who enjoy configuring web servers.
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mghackerlady • yesterday at 3:23 PM
ownership requires a bit of toiling to be meaningful, though. If everyone can have something, then nobody has it because it stops being something to be had
Why does it need to grow? Not trying to be a curmudgeon here, I'm just trying to explain the philosophy because I think it's totally alien to some people. And I mean actually this HAS grown. Just pointing out that as far as I still know, guys like Aaron and Tantek are still doing their thing, scratching their itches, being indie, and the framework is there if anyone else wants to also scratch their personal itch.
What it isn't: a service working on perfection and maximizing consumption, as for example a commenter (Andrea Zanchetta) seems to expect. "What they built isn't suitable for me" simply isn't a relevant statement. You can build the thing you want, or have a nice day.
The point of these movements is that people are doing things for themselves, not for you, and not for the mass market. They are generally quite friendly to other people who create their own things. They are not doing it however to engage a consultant, a collective, a central authority, or pursue market share. They're just being themselves and making. Opinions that aren't backed by creating your own are just not really part of the picture and that's OK. We don't need to respond to the collective zeitgeist. We don't need to listen to all the opinions of other people online. We can just make and appreciate it as its own reward.
Occasionally these people get sponsored, and then you end up with miracles like the Linux kernel. Most times they don't and they just tinker and they're happy. It's all good.