Ask HN: Is there a list of non-monetised, non-closed-ecosystem websites?

6 points by spiffotron 2 years ago | 5 comments
I'm old and I have rose-tinted glasses for the good old days of the internet where everyone just made sites for fun rather than as "side hustles". Sites which didn't have monetisation or adverts or analytics gubbins all bundled in or blogs which aren't hosted on closed ecosystems like medium or substack etc. Is there a good source for finding these rare spaces again?
  • jdsalaro 2 years ago
    I certainly share your nostalgia.

    I've restarted my blog (https://jdsalaro.com) this year and, as painful as it is, I've chosen to go against the grain and ditch Medium and the like.

    It always was just my place to nerd out and I noticed earlier this year that I had become disenchanted, but that taking action and not resignation was the solution. What if it doesn't rank, people don't enjoy my writing style or what about ads? So much thinking and not enough doing.

    So far people have been extremely kind on Mastodon, Lemmy and, yes, Reddit; so I encourage you to create and interact with other creators.

    I am not putting my bookmarks, including Blogs I enjoy, out in the open yet as I need to clean them up, but I certainly will at some point.

    • fsflover 2 years ago
      Not a list but a search engine among such websites: https://wiby.me
      • DamonHD 2 years ago
        Run up your own cheap hosted (Apache) server? It's how I do mine (albeit at home rather than in the cloud).

        Edit: and mine are not money-driven...

        • spiffotron 2 years ago
          I mean I'd like to find a way to discover other people's websites who also just do it for fun rather than websites that seem to solely exist to scrape pennies and/or data from people.
          • turtleyacht 2 years ago
            Some possibilities:

            https://search.marginalia.nu/

            HN profiles, Gemini, and Web rings too.

            Mailing lists for projects you may follow¹ could have people's signatures for their personal website.

            I can't remember the name, but there was also the idea of having an /about endpoint as a kind of social network.

            ¹Prerequisite: my own mail server :)

            • 2 years ago