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Joan Westenberg

I made a free Zine called I miss the internet.

And for weeks, I’ve been fielding people who are mad that they have to sign up for my mailing list - again, for free - to download it.

As a creator, if you charge for your work, people ask why it isn’t free.

If you put it behind a sign up wall, people ask why you deserve their information.

And if you just post it for any / all, you get scraped by an LLM.

But fuck it.

I’m tired.

If you want it just grab it from my Dropbox.

1 March at 12:53 | Open on mastodon.social
15 comments
Joan Westenberg
ren 🏳️‍🌈 (a they/them)
Warner Crocker

@Daojoan I’d like to inlcude a link to this in my Sunday Morning Reading column this Sunday.Which would you prefer I link to the Dropbox link or you @ westenberg link?

1 March at 13:15 | Open on mastodon.social
Albert Cardona

@Daojoan

Brilliant. And in a testament of the times, what would have once been a website is now a PDF that opens within a webpage of a megacorp that insists on wanting to move matters into an app and doesn't even let me copy some of the text until I download the file only after some yak shaving through menus and misleading buttons.

1 March at 13:24 | Open on mathstodon.xyz
Joan Westenberg

Being a creator is awesome.

1 March at 12:58 | Open on mastodon.social
sk
@Joan Westenberg loved this line:

> Amateur webmasters crafted their domains as personal expressions, little slices of their world that they invited you into.



This was something i sorely missed, having a space on the internet as ones own canvas where you can be the artist and express yourself and not just be treated as a passive consumer.
@Joan Westenberg loved this line:

> Amateur webmasters crafted their domains as personal expressions, little slices of their world that they invited you into.


1 March at 13:15 | Open on hub.utsukta.org
Steve Herrick

@Daojoan Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a skilled carpenter to build one.

Don't let the negativity get you down. There are more of us who like what you're doing, but don't always get around to letting you know.

1 March at 13:18 | Open on social.coop
ClaraBlackInk

@Daojoan The people who want your work for free are rarely the ones who will pay for it.

I'm sorry you're getting so much backlash. You don't need to explain yourself to people who want to scrape you.

1 March at 14:01 | Open on writing.exchange
Scott Hall

@Daojoan Thank you for writing this. Your zine felt like a remembered warm hug of nostalgia from an old friend. I especially loved your mix of typesetting. Just signed up for your mailing list.

1 March at 14:28 | Open on mastodon.social
Jank Hambrams

@Daojoan I enjoyed reading this. I don't have experience with the very early web, but I am also quite weary of what it's become.

1 March at 14:38 | Open on meh.social
Eugene Parnell

@Daojoan I just read it. Thank you. I feel much the same way.

1 March at 15:04 | Open on mstdn.social
Sacha Ravenda

@Daojoan Hi. I just subscribed to your mailing list. As someone who also really loved the internet of the late 90s/early 2000s, I appreciated reading your zine.

1 March at 15:13 | Open on social.yesterweb.org
LAUREN

@Daojoan @Mrfunkedude We have got to change the way we internet. Signing up for a newsletter with an email seems like a good place to retreat. Thank you for making the effort.✊

1 March at 16:03 | Open on mastodon.social
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