To get to the point, as a 12 year old coming from a home with absolutely no disposable income, free was the only option I had to try my hand and building a website. I had just built a computer the year before and thought it would be a nifty idea to try my hand in programming. I completed the project and used that skill to earn money during junior high, high school, college and in my career.
I'm not quite sure where I would be today if that teacher didn't put that option on the paper or, and more to the point, GeoCities didn't offer a 100% free way of my hosting my report about the Manhattan Project.
Fully sporting a GIF of a nuclear explosion.
Words that have launched a million (now bust) businesses.
While I have happily moved on to github and managin my own servers, any platform that promotes writing one's own markup over quick tumblr-esque posting is potentially a good thing.
This reminds me of writing blogs and learning to ignore all the inconstructive flames and focus on the people you're affecting positively. Anything worthwhile is bound to create a long tail of haters and garbage. Keeping it up despite these obstacles can be tough but definitely worthwhile.
Apparently one of the early neocities sites is exactly the kind of garbage that used to get made on Geocities: an adolescent fan site for a cartoon. But here's the thing: I made a freaking Pokemon site when I was in second grade or something. It was godawful, but it went up on Tripod and fed my interest in computers. And I sure as hell spent a lot of time at that age reading similar sites to find game cheat-codes.
And nowadays we have commenting and threading engines to let us make sites interactive.
The real internet was always a living embodiment of both Sturgeon's Law and the Long Tail phenomenon. Not every site has to appeal to everyone, but practically everyone can find a site they like.
So this is going to result in a huge amount of brilliant, fun utter crap.
[0]: http://10mbmanifesto.neocities.org [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5963671
Accurate description of hacker news right there :>
Sonic
It may have some struggles getting off the ground. After all, if you just want to put something on the internet, there are now many many ways to do that.
But for many people, the first step beyond their Tumblr page is still a total mystery. I learned HTML and Javascript because when I was 14, I wanted a website for my comedy troupe (no longer active). I spent hours researching free web hosting and stumbled upon Geocities. That kicked off a life of programming and a love for the web that has never died.
There are still people out there who would love to learn HTML and have some more control over what they put online. Bravo to Kyle for making it possible. Make a donation - even if you don't think you'll personally use it. It's worth it if it inspires even one kid to start building something.