The modern internet is bloated, surveillance-heavy, and increasingly homogenous. Websites' frontends rely on massive CSS and JavaScript files, often using only a fraction of the styles and functions they contain, to create "sleek" and often glitchy user interfaces with functionality that may or may not work in your non-Chrome-based browser. They discreetly track us across the internet, gathering data that should be private in order to better sell our attention to companies that want us to buy their products (for more on this, see Jenny O'Dell's How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy). The internet has gone from a collection of quirky little websites created by regular people to a landscape dominated by social media apps.
The functionality of these apps, and the types of "content" they promote, has become increasingly homogenous over the years - the product of the companies that own them trying to increase their market share by replicating each other's successes, thus increasing shareholder value. Also in the name of increasing shareholder value, the apps are designed to keep our attention as much as possible. The algorithms they use to determine what shows up on your feed prioritize posts that have generated engagement, often showing us dangerous or upsetting content simply because people feel compelled to click and comment on it. Algorithms subtly impact the way we publish our writing, pictures, and memes by rewarding us with our followers' attention for certain kinds of content (high-engagement, advertiser-friendly) and punishing us with obscurity for other types of content (low engagement, non advertiser-friendly). The good feelings we get when someone likes/hearts/shares/comments/upvotes something we've produced keep us posting as our previous work gets buried in a never-ending stream of "content." The policies of these apps determine what we are and are not allowed to say, generally with an eye to keeping us creating advertiser-friendly "content" rather than fostering a healthy environment. Of course, rules are sometimes developed with the aim of enforcing a specific set of values, also without regard to the type of environment they foster and sometimes without a tether to reality; see Elon Musk banning the word "cisgender," a term for a person who identifies as the gender they were assigned, as "hate speech," despite it being a common academic term used in queer theory.
I want none of this mess. I want a quirky little website where I can put lists of things I find interesting, my writing, and any thoughts I feel compelled to share. I want a simple UI that doesn't load CSS and JavaScript it doesn't actively use. I want a website that doesn't advertise to me or my readers and doesn't track us across the internet. I want to publish my writing without giving any thought to whether it will get likes and comments. I want a website people can check from time to time if my work is interesting enough to them that they think of it. I want the freedom to post about my interests, which largely center around LGBTQ+ history at the moment, without worrying that I'll get banned because some billionaire is offended by my using common queer theory terminology.
I was a web developer for several years. I am fully capable of making an aesthetically "modern" website. I simply do not want to.
This website uses HTML and CSS I have written. There are no trackers embedded in the pages; the only analytics I have access to are the default NeoCities ones that I believe are based on server access logs. I am keeping the user interface as simple as possible - for now, just black text on a white background with some headings, lists, and tables. If I ever add JavaScript, it will be limited and for a specific purpose. I may add an RSS feed at some point if I decide it's not too much of a pain.