There's something happening right now on the internet that feels like a quiet revolution. People are coming back to personal websites.

A few years ago, this would have seemed quaint—almost retro. But after a decade of trusting our thoughts, photos, and voices to platforms designed to extract our attention and data, we're remembering what the early web was really about: your corner of the internet.

The Platform Fatigue Is Real (And You're Not Alone)

Let's be honest. Social media has become exhausting.

You post carefully crafted content only to have it buried by an algorithm. You watch your reach decline even as your follower count stays the same. Your posts disappear into an archive no one will ever find. And all the while, you're not building anything that's truly yours—you're building a moat around someone else's castle.

The platforms changed the rules repeatedly. Twitter became X and lost half the people. Instagram prioritizes Reels over photos, even though photos are why we're there. LinkedIn feels like a networking event where everyone is shouting at once.

Most frustrating? You have no control. One policy change, one algorithm adjustment, one acquisition—and your digital presence can vanish. This isn't paranoia. It's what actually happened to millions of creators.

I built Jottings because I felt this frustration too. I wanted a place where my voice wasn't competing with a billion others, where my archive was mine to keep and shape, where the growth came from creating something I genuinely believed in—not from gaming an algorithm.

The Early Web Was Weird (And Beautiful)

If you remember the early 2000s internet, you remember something different. Personal blogs were everywhere. Weird homepages with custom CSS and JavaScript. People maintained sites about their hobbies—obscure music tastes, niche interests, strange observations about their daily lives.

The barrier to entry was low, but it required intention. You had to actually write something worth reading. You owned your audience—they subscribed to your RSS feed or bookmarked your site. There was a real relationship there.

Then we traded that intention for convenience. The platforms made it ridiculously easy to share anything. Drag, drop, post. Instant gratification. But we lost something in that trade: we lost ownership of our voice.

Centralization Has Real Costs

When a handful of companies control where people can publish, a few things happen:

First, censorship becomes trivial. Not just government censorship—but corporate censorship. Content moderation by algorithm. De-platforming without recourse. Your expression lives at the mercy of a terms of service no one reads.

Second, discovery becomes artificial. You're not finding content because it's good or because your friends love it—you're finding it because a machine thinks you'll engage with it. And engagement is maximized through outrage, sensationalism, and addiction.

Third, creativity becomes homogenized. Everyone learns to write and photograph and create in ways that perform well on platforms. The weird, experimental, deeply personal stuff—the stuff that actually makes the internet interesting—gets buried.

And perhaps most tragic: you don't own your archive. Instagram might delete your account. Twitter might sell its data. TikTok might shut down tomorrow. Your digital life is renting space from a landlord who could evict you anytime.

The IndieWeb Is Growing

This is the beautiful part. A real movement is building around digital independence.

There's the IndieWeb community—hundreds of developers and creators building tools and standards for a more open, personal internet. There are new blogging platforms focused on longevity and ownership. People are rebuilding RSS readers. Writers are migrating back to newsletters. Creators are building communities on their own sites instead of hoping TikTok's algorithm blesses them.

It's not about rejecting social media entirely. It's about making your personal website the center of your digital life, and using social platforms as distribution channels—not as your home.

You post on your site first. Then you share links on social media. That way, if a platform disappears tomorrow, your work is still there. Your ideas are still findable. Your voice is still yours.

Reclaim Your Corner of the Internet

Here's what I want you to do: Start a personal site.

It doesn't need to be complicated. It doesn't need to be a full-featured blogging platform with a steep learning curve. It just needs to be yours.

Write the things you think about. Share the links you find interesting. Document your learning, your projects, your weird observations about life. Create something with your own voice—not the voice Instagram or Twitter or TikTok have taught you to use.

Your personal site is:

• An archive that lasts. You control it. You can take it with you if you move platforms.
• A representation of your actual thoughts. Not filtered through engagement metrics or algorithmic optimization.
• A way to build real relationships. People who care about your voice will find you. They'll read your stuff because they want to, not because an algorithm showed it to them.
• A contribution to a healthier internet. Every person who owns their digital presence is one less person addicted to algorithmic feeds.

Building This Matters

I'm building Jottings because I believe in this shift. Not as a replacement for social media, but as the foundation that social media should sit on top of.

Your site doesn't need to be beautiful or perfectly optimized or updated daily. It just needs to exist. It needs to be yours.

The personal website never actually went anywhere—we just stopped paying attention to it. Now, more of us are realizing what we lost by giving our platforms to landlords.

The internet was more interesting when it was full of weird, personal corners. When it was a network of independent voices instead of a handful of feeds controlled by algorithmic gods.

I think we're about to remember that. And I think the internet is going to be better for it.

The Time is Now

The personal website renaissance isn't coming. It's already here. More people are registering domains. More platforms are prioritizing ownership. More creators are tired of playing by rules they didn't write.

This is your invitation to be part of it.

Your voice deserves better than an algorithm. Your ideas deserve a home that's actually yours. And the internet deserves the creative chaos that comes when everyone's building their own corner instead of competing in someone else's feed.

Ready to build your corner of the internet? Start your microblog with Jottings today and take back control of your digital presence.