If you spend time in IndieWeb discussion circles, such as chat.indieweb.org or the get-togethers listed on events.indieweb.org, or if you spend time wandering through the indieweb.org wiki, you will find evidence that many of us share the view that UX must come first[1].
There are one-click-setup IndieWeb entry points. The most prominent is micro.blog which gives you a personal blog/site with all the latest IndieWeb goodness and costs $5/month.
But most people interested in the IndieWeb these days are devs, i.e. nerds, and want to roll things themselves, which is why IndieWeb-related blog posts can feel like tech soup.
This is something IW members would gladly see change! Adoption by non-nerds is something the IW cares about. David Shanske[2], for instance, has spent much time in the last decade on Wordpress plugins that gives you much of of the IW tools out of the box [3].
Finally, you don't need to use all of the tech to be "doing IndieWeb". Having your own domain is the first and most important step. Then maybe you[4] try making a few pages: raw HTML, generated from Markdown, Django, whatever. Then you can add Microformats. Then maybe add a script to send WebMentions, or use a free hosted service to do it for you. Then branch out in whatever direction you choose. At all of these stages, your site is still IndieWeb.
[1] I'm not as active in IW circles as I was a few years ago but still consider myself part of it: my personal site has microformats, I use Micropub to update it, etc.
[2] david.shanske.com
[3] https://profiles.wordpress.org/dshanske/#content-plugins
[4] Generic "you".
Digital homesteading is the essence of the IndieWeb. Building things with one's own resources and know-how is part of it's DNA, whether or not that is acknowledged.
Because it's anti-platform and pro-ownership, content is secondary to the means of distribution. It's why it is bound to be a tech-heavy sub-culture and never a real alternative to big platforms.
which is exactly why the web lost, and large platforms won.
Meh. “Won” who? For a long time I was sad about the lost web, but it turns out most people on social media that has replaced the web have nothing interesting to say.
I am sad about local groups and forums, but that is not something that IndieWeb is trying to solve.
The other problem is businesses that have retired to Instagram. which I find baffling.
So then why are so many, so eager and committed, to overturn the big platforms if “most people”… “have nothing interesting to say.”?
People love to go "bad thing bad", but without actually anything else.
because the ones who have interesting things to say and want to say it for themselves number many, despite being very small in the face of the unwashed masses
Huh?
How does having their own place away from the “unwashed masses” relate to overturning the big platforms?
the people who want to overturn big platforms seem a lot larger than they really are. Think of how many people genuinely like facebook. It seems impossible to us, but there are hundreds of millions who still actively post and interact who see no problem with facebook
Three different groups of people, with some overlap between the first two:
The second group is especially loud. Which is normal, silent activism doesn’t really make sense.I seriously doubt that people who clamor for the death of Facebook and the likes do it so that indie web is full of macha latte labubu car tastings and supplement and gambling shills.