Am I a digital gardener now?

I fell for the lure of <firstname>@<emailprovider>. $100 later, here I am, trying to extract value out of the investment by using the built-in newsletter/blog service.

For many years I have struggled with the intention of escaping the clutches of ad-monetised ‘free’ platforms and the reality of running with the crutches of server maintenance. (sudo apt-get forgivemefatherforIcantdocker) It is indeed possible to do everything yourself but it is such a hassle, isn’t it? That’s why you pay someone else to do it for you. I mean, this is the entire premise of the hotel and food industry. You’re simply paying off impending mental debt in advance.

I can somewhat (fore)see the rise of paid platforms on the Internet in the coming decade. I am already on quite a few of them, for -

• Email
• Entertainment
• Shopping
• Security
• Hosting

And it makes sense, right? There are no free lunches. Someone has to foot the bill for your grandma’s recipes blog - it better be you (or your grandma) than a sneaky advertiser. (Oh, how much do we hate that word)

I guess this makes me a digital gardener then. This newsletter-blog hybrid. I already have a self-hosted blog so I don’t know how the two are going to reconcile but I like the lure of collecting subscriber email addresses that Hey World offers.

Here we go then.

Welcome to my yard.

…

Update: I gave up on <emailprovider> after 6 months. Their service was too slow for my liking. So I set up <firstname>@<website> instead. And ported my newsletter posts here as well. Same, but different.