@benwerd great post, disagree with opening para. Facebook grew with selfdogfooding & good UX, not “making money”, not until much much later. I think this is an important distinction because the internet archive is littered with startups that pursued “making money” first, or that made beautiful UX for *someone else*, unused by the creators/founders, and ignored by others too. Weinberger’s article has a lot of good food for thought. The general message that we cannot assume decentralized determinism is a good one. Independence isn’t inevitable. Independence, like freedom, requires eternal vigilance. Re: CloudFlare — you met someone that works there at a recent Homebrew Website Club meetup at The Creamery: https://indiewebcamp.com/events/2015-04-08-homebrew-website-club She said they want to work to help indieweb efforts, maybe even help host future meetups or IndieWebCamps. The rest of your post, I agree completely, and very well written. “technostalgia” is an amazing portmanteau. Totally agreed about the merits (not criticisms) of using open source software to build a business, to make a profit, to pay yourself to live, and to also create something sustainable. Looking forward to spending more time working together pushing this all forward at IndieWebCamp 2015 in just over two weeks! https://indiewebcamp.com/2015

@benwerd great post, disagree with opening para. Facebook grew with selfdogfooding & good UX, not “making money”, not until much much later.

I think this is an important distinction because the internet archive is littered with startups that pursued “making money” first, or that made beautiful UX for *someone else*, unused by the creators/founders, and ignored by others too.

Weinberger’s article has a lot of good food for thought. The general message that we cannot assume decentralized determinism is a good one.

Independence isn’t inevitable. Independence, like freedom, requires eternal vigilance.

Re: CloudFlare — you met someone that works there at a recent Homebrew Website Club meetup at The Creamery:

https://indiewebcamp.com/events/2015-04-08-homebrew-website-club

She said they want to work to help indieweb efforts, maybe even help host future meetups or IndieWebCamps.

The rest of your post, I agree completely, and very well written.

“technostalgia” is an amazing portmanteau.

Totally agreed about the merits (not criticisms) of using open source software to build a business, to make a profit, to pay yourself to live, and to also create something sustainable.

Looking forward to spending more time working together pushing this all forward at IndieWebCamp 2015 in just over two weeks! https://indiewebcamp.com/2015