I liked this article, and I had a website back in the days of having an html directory in my university unix account.

So what stops me today? I don't have hosting.

Eventually livejournal, blogspot, etc. came around and provided a decent approximation of what people wanted to do, for free. Yes there might be a little ad on the side but it was basically 'okay'.

Eventually FB etc. came along and provided a decent approximation of a blog and allowed easy readership. Friendfeed got bought and soon enough everyone was in everyone's business.

The problem is facebook, linkedin etc. are too easy to propogate information. My ramblings shouldn't show up on everyone's feed. They should show up to people who inbound come want to actively seek them out; those are the people for whom they might be interesting. It's kind of like talking to your neighbor.

You find out what's going on in their life, but maybe you don't want everyone on the street to know, but you're fine if they happened to ask you about it. Chances are if someone is genuinely interested in you, they'd come to your website... but do you want your boss to come?

I don't know maybe the internet was a little safer when it was not anonymous, but at least somewhat selective as to who would access it.