I’ve been online since that meant dialing into a local BBS with a 300 baud modem. Over the years, I’ve experienced walled gardens and more open systems. Early dialup services like Compuserve and The Source were walled gardens, where you and a community interacted and accessed services within the friendly confines of their platforms. When the internet came around, it become possible to interact outside the walls. People accessed what they wanted, when they wanted to. They visited websites for information and communicated with others through email, message boards, and instant messaging. When it started, social media was just another service available in the open internet.

More and more, each social media platform has become its own walled garden. In contrast to general access to the internet, which allows people to go anywhere, social media platforms bring you in through their apps and seek to keep you there. You are fed an algorithm driven selection of information, rather than a menu of information sources that you can reach out to.

I’m done with the algorithm’s opinions of what I want to see. I decided to significantly reduce my comsumption of Social Media – except for LinkedIn, which I use for professional networking, and Mastodon, which is more of an experiment for me (and, as a federated system, lacks an algorithm – for now). I also use Discord, but I don’t consider that social media.

The one thing I thought that I would miss is the ability to easily post things online where me and others can find them later, so I decided I would go old school and start this site. I will post blogs on topics of interest to me, including computing/tech, Jeep Wranglers, tabletop role playing games, ham radio, solutions to problems, and other random thoughts.

I’m not doing this for likes or to become an influencer. If you want to participate, feel free to register and comment on my posts. My content may or may not interest people, but that’s no different than social media posts.

Maybe this isn’t old school. I read recently that offline is the new luxury. If that’s true, then maybe a personal website is the new social media.