Matthias Ott predicting 2023 is The Year of the Personal Website:

Your personal website is a place that provides immense creative freedom and control. It’s a place to write, create, and share whatever you like, without the need to ask for anyone’s permission.

This is one of the main reasons I started my blog. I had been writing for other peoples for a long while, providing tech news sites with 4–5 posts a day for free, but wasn’t allowed to write about what I want to. My writing wasn’t an expression of me, it felt like being exploited.

So, a created a personal website. Something that could reflect me. It linked out to the posts I was still writing for other sites, but also mixed in photos, personal thoughts and everything else I wanted to post. It was my place on the internet, and in many ways it was me.

Since 2012 I’ve never stopped blogging. Unfortunately, back then I wasn’t really concerned about my posts, so when I moved or decided to change things I pruned older things and ones I didn’t like. So many of my words are lost, many don’t have my name on any more, but lots and lots are still here.

I won’t lose any of them again. Nor will I give them to other websites to monetise for their gain, or get drawn into the worst if of the worst on display. There have been many years that blogging is “coming back” but it never left. This year more than any other, it might be true though. We’re dusting off our personal websites and making the internet ours again. My origin story will be different to all others, and some people will be starting right now. I can’t wait to see what we build together, with our blogs.