The Case for Platform Independence
Protect your content by owning your platform.
As social platforms become more unstable and unreliable, independent publishing isn’t just an option—it’s a necessity.
Twitter’s collapse under Elon Musk was just the beginning. Substack and Meta have both come to embrace extremist content under the guise of free speech, while WordPress’s future grows uncertain as Matt Mullenweg’s erratic leadership raises concerns throughout the open source community. Now TikTok, with its billions of users and countless creators building livelihoods, faces a forced shutdown in the United States.
These aren’t isolated incidents — they’re symptoms of a deeper problem. Whether it’s algorithmic changes that tank your reach, sudden policy shifts that restrict your expression, leadership changes that transform the entire platform overnight, or government actions that can erase your audience instantly, the risks of dependency on big platforms is real.
The solution is platform independence. By owning your own web site — whether it’s a few static pages or a full content management system — you maintain control over your content’s destiny. You decide how it’s presented, shared, and preserved.
But independence doesn’t mean isolation. Modern web standards and protocols like ActivityPub allow independently-hosted sites to participate in the broader social web. You can still take advantage of the network effect of other platforms while maintaining a home base that can always be counted on. Your website becomes your hub, syndicating your content to social platforms that serve as distribution channels rather than primary hosts.
The real question isn’t whether to pursue platform independence, but how quickly you can get there. Content published on other platforms is content you can’t protect. You don’t have to start huge — even just a simple link page on your own domain is a big step forward.
Drop us a line. We’d love to chat about your goals and what we think the first steps might be for you.