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Comment by zeroCalories | Hacker News Reader

"small web" often feels like sorting through magazines at the doctor's office. Random, low quality, and outdated. I think going for "small community" can work well. Either people you're close with in real life, or people that you share an interest with.

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I just tried the Kagi smallweb link someone posted above and it immediately brought me to a Jon Skeet article about the quirks of C# records. Holy cow! I haven’t read a Jon Skeet blurb since like 2013 when I was writing a lot of weird (ie, compiler-y) C# and needing to ask a lot esoteric questions on StackOveeflow.

So for me, it’s 1 for 1. The pile of magazines appears to be good :)

(It’s possible I also just like different stuff than you. I loved reading dusty old National Geographics at my grandparents house when I was a kid. Definitely out of date!)

I didn't mean to imply there isn't anything worthwhile on the small web, but you simply have so much more on the big web. Hacker News, Twitter, TikTok, etc. and it's usually sorted by how interesting it is. Unfortunately random people post random crap on their blogs and my RSS feed doesn't algorithmically filter it for me.

> you simply have so much more on the big web ... and it's usually sorted by how interesting it is.

Getting away from that is a good thing. You shouldn't be interested in everything that is put in front of your face. You don't have the time for it and it's unhealthy to devote your time to consuming it. You should be aiming towards finding what you need, when you need it. You should be the one in command, not some algorithmic feed that is designed to capture and hold your attention.

> random people post random crap on their blogs

I have mixed feelings about blogs. While there are some excellent blogs out there, but it is also one of those formats that are meant to capture one's attention then have them come back for more.

> my RSS feed doesn't algorithmically filter it for me.

I haven't tried looking for it, but there ought to b feed readers that filter based on keyword.

I'm not interested in everything, that's exactly why I like an algorithm to sort it for me.

I struggle to phrase it in a way that doesn't feel cruel, but I often find "small web" stuff too personal to interest me.

Oftentimes it seems the content between such sites can be somewhat interchangeable. Similar film photography, cycling, hobbies, retro video games, some esoteric programming languages, whatever. Then, the only utility left per each individual site is the assumed specificity of the author themselves, which I usually do not care much about.

To your point, that last bit might matter inside a community.

That's ironic given that when stuff like Facebook and Twitter came on the scene, a lot of the derisive commentary was exactly that it was too personal. "I don't want to hear about every time you picked your nose", etc. And there's still tons of that stuff on those platforms.

On those platforms you can stalk people you care about, and have an algorithm sort everything else.

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