The Artisanal Web

No one was particularly optimizing for engagement or time-on-site or conversion. People made websites because they had something to say, or something to show, or just because they could. The web was weird and slow and full of bad tiled backgrounds, bad fonts and dumb ideas.

It was also weirdly, wildly, wonderfully human.

I almost feel like this is one benefit of Musk's takeover of Twitter/X. More people seem to have started building or resurrecting their own personal sites.

There are still people building the web by hand, very much like we did it in the early days. They know all about what's possible using modern tooling, yet they choose to expend their time and attention to the craft of doing it by hand. They care about the craft, and they care about what they're making. They believe in their unique skill and vision over engagement strategies and analytics and content algorithms. They don't need a platform, or they'll build their own.