Every few weeks a new story pops up and the premise is the same — the most recent being “A Facebook hacker beat my 2FA, bricked my Oculus Quest, and hit the company credit card” (codewriteplay.com). But the premise is generally the same. Something happens outside of a user’s control (and against their will / wishes), Facebook (or Google or Instagram or etc.) permanently bans / shuts down their account, and the user is left with no ‘help’ number to call, no human to talk to, and a “that sucks, move on I guess?” general response. Be it your Gmail account, Instagram account, or Tiktok wall, these are all free services and we pay nothing to use them. Aside from that making us the product, that also means they have little incentive to help users 😕. So my premise, my desire for folks is this: own your data. Even better, own your traffic! Make your own little garden on the internet; it’s an open space! The day may come when you’ll be glad that your posts, updates, pictures, etc. all exist on your own terms rather than a social media company’s. It has truly never been more accessible to create your own space.

Maybe it’s starting your own website (SquareSpace is actually great for personal websites), maybe it’s creating a blog, maybe it’s having a personal newsletter, maybe it’s HEY World. Whatever it is, move away from trusting a giant, centralized social media company to tender your data safely. They don’t care about it.

I’ll leave you with a simple but great article from DHH, subsequently hosted on his own HEY World blog:“No more platforms please”