However, Ive had trouble with super basic deployment stuff and i haven't found many resources to help. Ive just been using Cpanel, manual ftp updates, shared hosting etc, but have found this setup is super limiting, and I didn't really know much about hosting options before setting hosting up
I just found netlify, which seems great: integration with github, easy ssl certs, free, but just changing the DNS to point to netlify has been confusing, and I haven't been able to fix it. I also setup a site for a friend who was using wix (so terrible...) and can't figure out how to get hosting switched.
I feel stupid for not being able to do this, and have been able to figure out how to do a lot of stuff that should be more complex (building web apps, data analysis with Python, etc) but I've struggled with basics of deployment
A good set of resources for people who aren't engineers but have some HTML / CSS and programming knowledge, but don't have any devops or professional engineering background would be really useful imo
The only way to ensure that your content doesn't get reshared without your permission is to create a tightly locked-down walled garden. If you're really worried, you need some sort of DRM too. And if you're really really worried, you need global laws that ban software that breaks DRM.
You can't have private, distributed data. You have to pick.
Can you elaborate on how exactly maintaining your own site/blog/domain/presence etc is at odds with privacy advocation?
Content control, copyright and DRM are orthogonal to the issue of privacy.
Also I don't really understand the use of the phrase "the distributed internet" to distinguish from "silos" and "walled gardens." The internet is by design distributed. FB while being a walled-garden is still very much "on" the internet.
You can't publish your site/blog/domain/presence privately to your friends. That venue does not substitute for Facebook. When talk about replacing social media, we have to accept that most people don't want to share their baby photos etc with the world.
A website that any old person can access means it's a website that any number of bots can crawl over and aggregate. Now you're basically back where we started with Facebook.
I think it should be possible by leveraging public-key encryption. That's going to require something beyond Wordpress though.
What giant corporations don't want to build their own sites?
>"It isn't that people can't, it's that they would rather pay for it with money or data instead of time."
There might be a sea change in this though. And I think with things like Squarespace et al you can create a slick looking site for yourself with both minimal time and cost.
The author suggests everyone "acquire your own damn digital land." And I think this is the way forward. In 2005 or the pre-FB era being a "techie" was a personal distinction. I feel that now most people have become "techies" in varying degrees, either out of necessity or general interest. I mention this because I think I think there's so many more people now that are fully capable of operating their own site or blog than there were in the pre-FB era or the pre-smart phone era.
I think one of the greatest joys of "getting online" back in the day was the sense of adventure that the internet provided - strange, funny, obscure, intriguing, informative "websites" lurked everywhere. And stumbling on one of them and bookmarking them is/was a strange thrill. Contrast this to scrolling through a uniform looking "newsfeed" you have no control over. I think something like a "back to the internet" movement just might make it's own momentum.