2025-08-22 19:00:00
This is the 104th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Tom Critchlow and his blog, tomcritchlow.com
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Hey I’m Tom Critchlow. I grew up in the North of England and moved to NYC ~15 years ago. I live in Brooklyn with my partner and two kids (9 and 5). They’re like electric smudges. Full of crackling potential and never quite where you expect them to be.
I’m best known I think for being an independent consultant working in digital media - I worked for myself for 10 years and blogged my way through that whole journey. I wrote an annual recap for 9 years in my series on the road and I wrote a whole book about the practice of sustainable independent consulting which I serialized on my blog: The Strategic Independent.
About a year ago I took a full time role which was a big narrative violation with my identity as an independent consultant but actually I’m also a deep nerd about organizational design and management theory so this has been a fun change of pace from being self employed and a chance to flex some different muscles.
My favorite color is Green.
I’ve been writing online personally and professionally forever. As a teenager I wrote short stories and poetry online at Elfwood. Then in my early 20s, as a semi-professional poker player I’d post on the Two Plus Two poker forums. When I started working in SEO and digital media in the early ‘00s it was just kind of the done thing to blog - there was a culture of open sharing. We’d blog about stuff we were discovering, how Google worked, conferences we’d been to and so on.
But, after bouncing around various platforms like Tumblr, Medium and Svbtle, I eventually committed to tomcritchlow.com somewhere around 2015. That was the first year of going independent and so everything really started there. In 2016 I almost launched a brand for my consulting work but backed out and instead committed to blending my personal and professional writing on my blog. In hindsight that was a pivotal moment when online writing started to really become important and a part of my identity.
I’ve always gravitated towards loose, iterative, messy writing. Some of my most popular writing has been building a digital garden, small b blogging and writing, riffs and relationships.
Among my friends I’ve long been “the blogging guy” but it’s taken me a surprisingly long time to realize exactly why blogging is so important to me - it’s because it’s a form of creative expression that finds other people. Writing on the internet has always for me been in service of finding creative connections with others and I wish more people had an outlet for being themselves and finding other people.
No kind of routine or process has ever worked for me to write with any consistency - instead all of my writing either comes out of a random flash of inspiration or overdosing on coffee. Often both.
That said - maintaining a long list of drafts, post title ideas and quotes is kind of the raw materials from which inspiration comes. So I try and note down headlines, links and quotes when I find them that I might want to write about later. This is the “breathing in and out” of inspiration that Derek Sivers wrote about.
This is also why I built Quotebacks with Toby Shorin - a tool and protocol for quoting writing online. I’d love to find time to build more micro-tools for bloggers and the online writing ecosystem.
Anywhere that has coffee will do.
My site is built using Jekyll and hosted on Github Pages. You can see the whole repo here: https://github.com/tomcritchlow/tomcritchlow.github.io
There’s a bunch of other things that play a part:
I write posts in VScode in markdown and push them to Github to publish. I’m not sure I’d recommend this “bare metal” approach to blogging but it’s kind of fun because I can play around with whatever I want very easily. I’ve tried a tap stories format for my blog posts, or an archive of every external link on the site (1797 links at time of publish) or a digital garden or a publicly accessible feed reader.
This kind of “breaking the form” stuff is mostly just experiments but they’re always tons of fun.
I wish I’d figured out why blogging is so important to me earlier. And committed to riffs. And written more. And written weeknotes. And not stopped blogging for two years when I worked at Google. And never written on Medium. And started an email list earlier. And really committed to Hypothesis as a platform. And built my own annotation system for the web. And posted more photos. And done more blogpunk. And linked out more. And written more about my kids. And shared more of what’s not working in my life. And written more. And written that damn junkfeeds essay. And doodled more. And. And. And.
I don’t monetize my blog directly though like many others it’s been a springboard for…. literally everything? I’m not exaggerating when I say that I don’t think I’d have been able to sustain a 10 year independent consulting career without my blog.
But more than financial rewards, the friendships, discussions and connections that have come from blogging have changed my life.
A lot of the people I’d recommend have already been mentioned! I’ll try and add a few I haven’t seen mentioned:
For the business nerds:
I’m having a lot of fun writing a little series of provocations about near futures thinking with my friend Brian at Little Futures. We’re working on a print on demand recap soon so stay tuned for that.
This was the 104th edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed this interview with Tom. Make sure to follow his blog (RSS) and get in touch with him if you have any questions.
You can support this series on Ko-Fi and all supporters will be listed here as well as on the official site of the newsletter.
Jamie Thingelstad (RSS) — Piet Terheyden — Eleonora — Carl Barenbrug (RSS) — Steve Ledlow (RSS) — Paolo Ruggeri (RSS) — Nicolas Magand (RSS) — Rob Hope — Chris Hannah (RSS) — Pedro Corá (RSS) — Sixian Lim (RSS) — Matt Stein (RSS) — Winnie Lim (RSS) — Flamed (RSS) — C Jackdaw (RSS) — Kevin Humdrum (RSS) — Fabricio Teixeira (RSS) — Rosalind Croad — Mike Walsh (RSS) — Markus Heurung (RSS) — Michael Warren (RSS) — Chuck Grimmett (RSS) — Bryan Maniotakis (RSS) — Barry Hess (RSS) — Ivan Moreale — Ben Werdmuller (RSS) — Cory Gibbons — Luke Harris (RSS) — Lars-Christian Simonsen (RSS) — Cody Schultz — Brad Barrish (RSS) — Nikita Galaiko — Erik Blankvoort — Jaga Santagostino — Andrew Zuckerman — Mattia Compagnucci (RSS) — Thord D. Hedengren (RSS) — Fabien Sauser (RSS) — Maxwell Omdal — Numeric Citizen (RSS) — Jarrod Blundy (RSS) — Andrea Contino (RSS) — Sebastian De Deyne (RSS) — Nicola Losito (RSS) — Lou Plummer (RSS) — Leon Mika (RSS) — Neil Gorman (RSS) — Reaper (RSS) — Matt Rutherford (RSS) — Aleem Ali (RSS) — Nikkin (RSS) — Hans (RSS) — Matt Katz (RSS) — Ilja Panić — Emmanuel Odongo — Peter Rukavina (RSS) — James (RSS) — Adam Keys (RSS) — Alexey Staroselets (RSS) — John L — Minsuk Kang (RSS) — Naz Hamid (RSS) — Ken Zinser (RSS) — Jan — Grey Vugrin (RSS) — Luigi Mozzillo (RSS) — Alex Hyett (RSS) — Andy Piper — Hrvoje Šimić (RSS) — Travis Schmeisser — Doug Jones — Vincent Ritter (RSS) — Shen — Fabian Holzer (RSS) — Courtney (RSS) — Dan Ritz (RSS) — İsmail Şevik (RSS) — Jeremy Bassetti (RSS) — Luke Dorny (RSS) — Thomas Erickson — Herman Martinus (RSS) — Benny (RSS) — Annie Mueller (RSS) — SekhmetDesign — Gui (RSS) — Jamie (RSS) — Juha Liikala (RSS) — Ray (RSS) — Chad Moore (RSS) — Benjamin Wittorf (RSS) — Radek Kozieł (RSS) — Marcus Richardson — Emily Moran Barwick (RSS) — Gosha (RSS) — Manton Reece (RSS) — Silvano Stralla (RSS) — Benjamin Chait (RSS) — Cai Wingfield — Pete (RSS) — Pete Millspaugh (RSS) — Martin Matanovic (RSS) — Coinciding Narratives (RSS) — Arun Venkatesan (RSS) — fourohfour.net (RSS) — Jonathan Kemper — Bookofjoe (RSS) — Marius Masalar (RSS) — Jim Mitchell (RSS) — Simon Howard (RSS) — Frederick Vanbrabant (RSS) — Thibault Malfoy (RSS) — Beradadisini (RSS) — x-way (RSS) — Vincent Geoffray — TAONAW (RSS) — Sebastián Monía (RSS) — grubz (RSS) — Sal (RSS)
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2025-08-18 01:20:00
If someone manages to create a content blocker for MacOS/iOS that prevents all the content that mentions either AI or vibe coding to reach my screen, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. I am so goddamn tired of reading about AI, GPT models, and people vibe-coding. I get it, it’s fun tech, but it’s exhausting. It’s the crypto/NFT craze on steroids.
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2025-08-15 19:00:00
This is the 103rd edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Loren Stephens and his blog, ldstephens.net
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I'm Loren Stephens, and I recently turned 80. I'm originally from California, but now I live in central New Jersey with my partner, Lisa, our dog, Trix, and a flock of chickens (yes, they all have names) on our 10-acre property. We also have an abundance of wildlife roaming through.
I retired in 2009, so it's been a while since I've had to get up and go to work every day. Before retiring, I spent 25 years in the automotive industry, 12 years in finance, and 8 years in advertising and media.
These days, I spend my time with Lisa and our animals, looking after our land (which is certified by New Jersey as a wildlife habitat). My routine is pretty consistent, I get my daily exercise, tinker with tech like Jack Baty, read a lot, and handle whatever needs doing around the property. Probably sounds boring, but it works for me.
I've had several blogs over the years. The first one I remember was on Blogger, sometime after Google bought it in 2003. Honestly, I have no idea what I was writing about back then.
ldstephens.net started on WordPress.com in 2016, around the time I was switching from PC and Android to Apple. I was excited to learn how to use my new iPhone and Mac--and to figure out what apps I should be using. That's when I discovered Mac Power Users. I listened to every episode from the start, and I'm still listening today.
I was learning so much that I wanted to share what I found. I started blogging in the hope that someone else might stumble across my posts and discover something helpful or interesting about using Apple gear. That's still a lot of what I write about today. But I also write for myself to think through ideas and document what I'm learning.
Last year, I started experimenting with the static site generator 11ty and found a WordPress importer. I migrated my blog, and now it's built with 11ty and hosted on Netlify.
It's pretty straightforward. I write all my posts in Markdown with front matter, using Drafts on my Mac. Once the post feels ready, I save it to my Desktop and name the file with the post slug.
From there, I drag the file into a Dropzone action that moves it into the right folder in my local 11ty project. If needed, I'll open the project in VS Code to make any final edits. Then I use GitHub Desktop to commit and push the changes. Netlify takes care of publishing the site.
I like to keep the whole process simple and flexible.
Not really. Being retired, I write when I feel like it, with no schedule, and because I enjoy it. I usually write on my Mac, sitting somewhere quiet in the house. I try to keep things simple and low pressure.
My blog is a static site built with 11ty, using HTML and CSS, and deployed on Netlify. It automatically deploys whenever I push changes to the public GitHub repo.
For writing posts, tweaking the design, or adding features, I work in VS Code. I draft posts in Markdown using Drafts, then add them to the site in VS Code. I do it all on my M4 MacBook Pro.
Yes. If I were starting a blog today, knowing what I know now, I'd use a static site generator from the start. I've learned enough HTML and CSS to build and maintain a simple static site, and I like the control it gives me.
For someone who doesn't have the time or interest to mess with static site generators, I'd suggest starting with something simple like Pika or maybe Bear if you want a little more flexibility. I'd recommend staying away from WordPress, it's too much overhead for a personal blog.
My blog is free to run. 11ty, GitHub, and Netlify are all free to use, and I don’t track analytics. The only cost is $20 a year for the domain. As for making money from it, I’m not interested. It’s free and always will be for anyone to read.
I’m fine with donation buttons like Ko-Fi or Buy Me a Coffee on other people’s blogs. But if an indie blogger starts putting some or all of their content behind a paywall, I’m done. The real question is whether the income from these efforts actually makes a difference financially. I bet in 99.9% of cases, it doesn’t. By switching to a paywalled model, they probably annoy a lot of their loyal readers. So why bother?
Here are a few indie bloggers I enjoy reading, and I don't think they've been interviewed on People and Blogs yet:
I don’t have much going on in the way of side projects right now; the blog is my main creative outlet. I still enjoy listening to Mac Power Users, which got me started down this path, and I keep up with a few other Apple-focused podcasts and indie blogs through RSS.
When it comes to websites I enjoy, I like simple personal blogs where people write about what interests them. I appreciate clean, distraction-free sites with thoughtful writing.
I just enjoy learning new things and writing about them.
PS: I don’t do social media, so the only place you’ll find me is on my blog.
This was the 103rd edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed this interview with Loren. Make sure to follow his blog (RSS) and get in touch with him if you have any questions.
You can support this series on Ko-Fi and all supporters will be listed here as well as on the official site of the newsletter.
Jamie Thingelstad (RSS) — Piet Terheyden — Eleonora — Carl Barenbrug (RSS) — Steve Ledlow (RSS) — Paolo Ruggeri (RSS) — Nicolas Magand (RSS) — Rob Hope — Chris Hannah (RSS) — Pedro Corá (RSS) — Sixian Lim (RSS) — Matt Stein (RSS) — Winnie Lim (RSS) — Flamed (RSS) — C Jackdaw (RSS) — Kevin Humdrum (RSS) — Fabricio Teixeira (RSS) — Rosalind Croad — Mike Walsh (RSS) — Markus Heurung (RSS) — Michael Warren (RSS) — Chuck Grimmett (RSS) — Bryan Maniotakis (RSS) — Barry Hess (RSS) — Ivan Moreale — Ben Werdmuller (RSS) — Cory Gibbons — Luke Harris (RSS) — Lars-Christian Simonsen (RSS) — Cody Schultz — Brad Barrish (RSS) — Nikita Galaiko — Erik Blankvoort — Jaga Santagostino — Andrew Zuckerman — Mattia Compagnucci (RSS) — Thord D. Hedengren (RSS) — Fabien Sauser (RSS) — Maxwell Omdal — Numeric Citizen (RSS) — Jarrod Blundy (RSS) — Andrea Contino (RSS) — Sebastian De Deyne (RSS) — Nicola Losito (RSS) — Lou Plummer (RSS) — Leon Mika (RSS) — Neil Gorman (RSS) — Reaper (RSS) — Matt Rutherford (RSS) — Aleem Ali (RSS) — Nikkin (RSS) — Hans (RSS) — Matt Katz (RSS) — Ilja Panić — Emmanuel Odongo — Peter Rukavina (RSS) — James (RSS) — Adam Keys (RSS) — Alexey Staroselets (RSS) — John L — Minsuk Kang (RSS) — Naz Hamid (RSS) — Ken Zinser (RSS) — Jan — Grey Vugrin (RSS) — Luigi Mozzillo (RSS) — Alex Hyett (RSS) — Andy Piper — Hrvoje Šimić (RSS) — Travis Schmeisser — Doug Jones — Vincent Ritter (RSS) — Shen — Fabian Holzer (RSS) — Courtney (RSS) — Dan Ritz (RSS) — İsmail Şevik (RSS) — Jeremy Bassetti (RSS) — Luke Dorny (RSS) — Thomas Erickson — Herman Martinus (RSS) — Benny (RSS) — Annie Mueller (RSS) — SekhmetDesign — Gui (RSS) — Jamie (RSS) — Juha Liikala (RSS) — Ray (RSS) — Chad Moore (RSS) — Benjamin Wittorf (RSS) — Radek Kozieł (RSS) — Marcus Richardson — Emily Moran Barwick (RSS) — Gosha (RSS) — Manton Reece (RSS) — Silvano Stralla (RSS) — Benjamin Chait (RSS) — Cai Wingfield — Pete (RSS) — Pete Millspaugh (RSS) — Martin Matanovic (RSS) — Coinciding Narratives (RSS) — Arun Venkatesan (RSS) — fourohfour.net (RSS) — Jonathan Kemper — Bookofjoe (RSS) — Marius Masalar (RSS) — Jim Mitchell (RSS) — Simon Howard (RSS) — Frederick Vanbrabant (RSS) — Thibault Malfoy (RSS) — Beradadisini (RSS) — x-way (RSS) — Caleb Hailey (RSS) — Vincent Geoffray — TAONAW (RSS) — Sebastián Monía (RSS) — grubz (RSS) — Sal (RSS)
If you like this series and want to help it grow, you can:
Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.
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2025-08-10 13:45:00
It’s Sunday the 10th, the first full week of August is about to end, which means it’s time to check in on my totally arbitrary hiking challenge. As a reminder, the goal is to log at least 4810 meters of total ascent while hiking up the mountains, with two extra stretch goals set at 6961 and 8848 meters.
After 10 days (including a few rainy ones), I am sitting at 1804 meters (and also 42.8km walked), so I’m on pace for around 5500 meters, which is easily over the goal. Having said that, I am typing this at 7:40 in the morning, and I’m currently debating if I should go for another hike today.
The issue with this plan is that the hike I want to do has more than 1000 meters of ascent, and the forecast is saying temperatures can go up to 39°. The combination of these two things is not very appealing at the moment. But I am an idiot, and I’ve done things just as stupid in my life, so I might go for it anyway. I guess we’ll see.
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2025-08-08 19:00:00
This is the 102nd edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Alexandra and her blog, xandra.cc
To follow this series subscribe to the newsletter. A new interview will land in your inbox every Friday. Not a fan of newsletters? No problem! You can read the interviews here on the blog or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.
If you're enjoying the People and Blogs series and you want to see it grow, consider supporting on Ko-Fi.
this the hardest question! i’m alexandra! i’m in my mid-30s. i’m originally from the south but now live in the pacific northwest. i did the better part of a decade living in san francisco, and i can attest that leaving your heart there is inevitable when you move away.
i am trying to break myself from the habit of launching into work when describing myself, so i’ll start with these. i’m a bardic (level 1) druid in OBOD and deeply revere nature. i am a poet, a writer, and i dabble in visual arts. i am a legal marriage officiant. i have a boyfriend of three years who lives with me and our dog, pepper, in our home. i used to be a hardcore gamer, but i find myself playing cozy games these days. i am not very good at cooking, but i’m an excellent baker. i forget names constantly, but i never forget a face. i write lowercase-only in all of my personal work to distinguish it from my serious professional writing, which has always had rules and guidelines and policies that aren’t quite as flexible to be fun. i prefer to play with expectations of language, grammar, and wordplay in my writing, and doing that in traditional case feels … off.
i’ve been working on websites for over two-thirds of my life. i started in 1997/1998, just thinking the internet was complete magic. i ended up becoming a journalist with a coding problem, and that led me to working in tech- and tech-adjacent positions alongside my reporter role. (i eventually pivoted into digital content, and my consistent field for the last 10 years has been web content management.) i’d always just hopped on new tools as they emerged, becoming an early adopter of platforms like twitter, and with that came lessons in how people engaged with content and read/consume online.
i rejoined “this side of the web” during the pandemic, when i was feeling nostalgic and wondering where the internet “went” (turns out: nowhere). my latest personal site, xandra.cc, launched in 2021.
oh, and i’ve been called “incredibly verbose.”
i launched the library of alexandra after some egging on by flamed. i have always had a sour taste in my mouth related to being called a capital-b blogger left over from journalism school, but i thought it was important to have a place for me to be able to ramble as long as i’d like about the minute and perhaps boring details of my life in addition to commentary on things going on. i often see folks lament blogging because they don’t feel as if they do enough to “warrant” a blog entry, but i think having so-called “smaller” moments in these blogging spaces (that are often oversaturated with nazel-gazing about coding projects, software development, or careers–said lovingly, of course!) is important to see and read to understand others while navigating our lives outside of the internet. i enjoy reading others’ blogs because i do not think the way they do, and i want to understand their perspective and outlook. i truly believe we learn from each other through our personal websites and blogs, and hope more folks write more about their lives and less about their work. just trying to be the change i want to see!
usually, it looks like me rattling off about something to my partner too much. (not that he minds!) but i get tossed up between whether or not something belongs on mastodon versus my blog. i think i treat my blog a bit like assuming you’re searching out this type of content rather than on the fediverse, which can just put your posts in front of folks.
i write the entry all at once. it’s typically late at night before bed. i read it over once and, if it’s particularly spicy, i might send it off to a friend for reading over before publishing. after i publish, i’ll read it over once again to check for glaring errors. (i only seem to catch them after publication.)
i wish i was one of those people who could type away in a coffee shop, but i just get too distracted. my ideal creative environment is cool (not cold), alone, and either at night or from a vista i don’t mind daydreaming at, with one of my keyboards that sound particularly soothing when typing a long spell. different keyboards for different activities!
i do think physical space can influence my creativity. if my desk is messy, i tend to do more creative work but feeling overwhelmed and stressed. on the other end, if my desk is clean, i find myself doing more productive or organizational tasks.
i’m also in the process of moving all of my productivity tools over to a self-hosted nextcloud instance, and setting all of that up does feel like it’s keeping me on track with my creative projects.
hell yeah, broseph! i really like supporting independent web projects if i can, so i opt to use services and projects specifically made by small teams or individuals: bearblog for my blog, chyrp lite for my microblog, and neocities for my personal website.
i would absolutely not try to pigeonhole my content into specific buckets. i thought it’d help me with coming up with essay ideas, but i find myself limited by not really wanting to create additional categories. i’d also change the CSS theming sooner; i used default link styling and the font family used in the theme i picked, but it was really irking me for a while since i enjoy long link text.
i pay $50/year for bearblog’s paid subscription, $5/month for neocities, and $10/month for my shared hosting on dreamhost for my side projects.
honestly, i think the future of content work and content creation is centered around supporting individual and small team creators individually rather than paying for streaming services or legacy media companies. you see this already with 404 media’s flourishing; patreon, onlyfans, ko-fi, ghost… the amount of tools that are being streamlined and improved upon is exploding for bloggers, content creators, and independent developers to make their living essentially crowdsourced. i think anything we can do to gain independence and self-sufficiency outside of a system that is designed to rule/control/manipulate us (e.g. big tech platforms) is a net positive.
the bearblog discovery feed is one of the coolest feeds i’ve seen in a while–just the variation of content is so nice to see. and being able to see so much written by real humans feels really, really nice. i recommend going through and finding your next favorite blogger there. there’s something for everyone.
suggesting someone new is so hard because you’ve already interviewed so many of my friends! i’ll throw these 32-bit cafe members out whose blogs i really enjoy:
amazing people and amazing writings! :)
yeah! you’re so cool for doing this! p&b is definitely a gem in the indieweb. :)
if you want to follow more of my stuff, here’s what i’ve been working on lately:
This was the 102nd edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed this interview with Alexandra. Make sure to follow her blog (RSS) and get in touch with her if you have any questions.
You can support this series on Ko-Fi and all supporters will be listed here as well as on the official site of the newsletter.
Jamie Thingelstad (RSS) — Piet Terheyden — Eleonora — Carl Barenbrug (RSS) — Steve Ledlow (RSS) — Paolo Ruggeri (RSS) — Nicolas Magand (RSS) — Rob Hope — Chris Hannah (RSS) — Pedro Corá (RSS) — Sixian Lim (RSS) — Matt Stein (RSS) — Winnie Lim (RSS) — Flamed (RSS) — C Jackdaw (RSS) — Kevin Humdrum (RSS) — Fabricio Teixeira (RSS) — Rosalind Croad — Mike Walsh (RSS) — Markus Heurung (RSS) — Michael Warren (RSS) — Chuck Grimmett (RSS) — Bryan Maniotakis (RSS) — Barry Hess (RSS) — Ivan Moreale — Ben Werdmuller (RSS) — Cory Gibbons — Luke Harris (RSS) — Lars-Christian Simonsen (RSS) — Cody Schultz — Brad Barrish (RSS) — Nikita Galaiko — Erik Blankvoort — Jaga Santagostino — Andrew Zuckerman — Mattia Compagnucci (RSS) — Thord D. Hedengren (RSS) — Fabien Sauser (RSS) — Maxwell Omdal — Numeric Citizen (RSS) — Jarrod Blundy (RSS) — Andrea Contino (RSS) — Sebastian De Deyne (RSS) — Nicola Losito (RSS) — Lou Plummer (RSS) — Leon Mika (RSS) — Neil Gorman (RSS) — Reaper (RSS) — Matt Rutherford (RSS) — Aleem Ali (RSS) — Nikkin (RSS) — Hans (RSS) — Matt Katz (RSS) — Ilja Panić — Emmanuel Odongo — Peter Rukavina (RSS) — James (RSS) — Adam Keys (RSS) — Alexey Staroselets (RSS) — John L — Minsuk Kang (RSS) — Naz Hamid (RSS) — Ken Zinser (RSS) — Jan — Grey Vugrin (RSS) — Luigi Mozzillo (RSS) — Alex Hyett (RSS) — Andy Piper — Hrvoje Šimić (RSS) — Travis Schmeisser — Doug Jones — Vincent Ritter (RSS) — Shen — Fabian Holzer (RSS) — Courtney (RSS) — Dan Ritz (RSS) — Jeremy Bassetti (RSS) — Luke Dorny (RSS) — Thomas Erickson — Herman Martinus (RSS) — Benny (RSS) — Annie Mueller (RSS) — SekhmetDesign — Gui (RSS) — Jamie (RSS) — Juha Liikala (RSS) — Ray (RSS) — Chad Moore (RSS) — Benjamin Wittorf (RSS) — Radek Kozieł (RSS) — Marcus Richardson — Emily Moran Barwick (RSS) — Gosha (RSS) — Manton Reece (RSS) — Silvano Stralla (RSS) — Mario Figueroa — Benjamin Chait (RSS) — Cai Wingfield — Pete (RSS) — Pete Millspaugh (RSS) — Martin Matanovic (RSS) — Coinciding Narratives (RSS) — Arun Venkatesan (RSS) — fourohfour.net (RSS) — Jonathan Kemper — Bookofjoe (RSS) — Marius Masalar (RSS) — Jim Mitchell (RSS) — Simon Howard (RSS) — Frederick Vanbrabant (RSS) — Thibault Malfoy (RSS) — Beradadisini (RSS) — x-way (RSS) — Caleb Hailey (RSS) — Vincent Geoffray — TAONAW (RSS) — Sebastián Monía (RSS) — grubz (RSS) — Sal (RSS)
If you like this series and want to help it grow, you can:
Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.
Email me :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month :: See my generous supporters :: Subscribe to People and Blogs
2025-08-08 04:25:00
Contrary to what many people seem to be doing, especially in the digital world, I don’t often change the tools and services I use. When I find something that works, I’m happy to stick around for the long run. Well, at least unless something major happens that forces me to reconsider my choices.
And I can’t really tell you why I find that approach appealing to me. Maybe because it spares me from constantly having to reconsider my choices. It’s probably the same reason why, for years, I was wearing the same set of clothes: when all you have are white t-shirts, you don’t have to waste time thinking about how to dress; you just get dressed.
I started my career developing sites on WordPress back in 2011. Around 2016 or 2017, I found myself spending so much time fighting against the CMS (and the new Gutenberg editor was coming) that I decided it was time to look for an alternative: I found Kirby and never had to look for alternatives since. I coded this blog on Kirby back in 2017, and it’s still on it, 8 years later.
I’m writing this blog post using IA Writer, an app I’ve been using since April 2012. That’s more than 13 years ago. And the same story applies to pretty much all the apps I use the most: I’ve been using Sublime Text since 2013, Transmit since 2016, and Codekit since 2014.
And the thing I love the most about sticking with tools for the long run is that you get to know the people behind them, and you learn to appreciate those individuals and what they do. That is especially true in my case because most of the tools I use are built by either small teams or single developers.
When I have an issue with Buttondown, a service I’ve been using since 2019, I don’t open a ticket inside a soulless Zendesk portal and get an automated email: I email Justin. When I stumble on a bug inside Codekit, I email Bryan. And I absolutely love it, I love when I know who are the people on the other side, doing things that allow me to be creative and have fun doing my job.
I also love when I get to be involved. One of the things I love the most about Kirby, for example, is how amazing the community is and has been throughout all these years. It’s also why I was so stoked the other day when I got a message letting me know I got accepted as a Ko-fi Ambassador because I love when I have the chance to give my contribution and help improve the tools I use.
Sticking around is fun, it’s enjoyable, and seeing products evolve and improve over time is both exciting and rewarding, which is why it always makes me happy when I get to contribute something back to the products I use. It’s why I’m happy to pay for good software, it’s why I’m happy to support creators I enjoy. I want good and quality things to exist in this world, and doing my small part to help that cause fills me with joy.
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