Why the Small Web Is Making a Quiet Comeback (And Why You Should Care)

Let's be honest: the modern internet feels exhausting.

Every scroll feeds an algorithm. Every post gets measured in engagement metrics. We're drowning in sponsored content, recommendation engines, and notification ping-pong designed to keep us glued to screens we already spend too much time staring at. The average person's online experience is increasingly mediated by platforms that optimize for watch time, ad revenue, and data collection—not genuine human connection.

That's exactly why I keep finding myself drifting toward what people call the "small web."

So What Exactly Is the Small Web?

The small web is a bit of an umbrella term, and that's part of its charm. At its core, it's an intentional return to what the internet used to feel like before everything got "optimized" into oblivion. We're talking text-heavy websites with minimal JavaScript, personal blogs written by real humans, and communities that form around shared interests rather than viral potential.

Think of it as the opposite of the algorithm-driven, engagement-maximizing content ecosystem we've come to accept as normal. No autoplay videos. No infinite scroll. No dark patterns designed to manipulate your behavior. Just people writing things because they have something to say, and readers showing up because they actually want to hear it.

The movement is loosely organized but deeply passionate. You'll find small web enthusiasts sharing discoveries on platforms like Bubbles, curating blogs through directories like ooh.directory and indieblog.page, or publishing through minimalist platforms like Bear Blog. Some are even experimenting with decentralized protocols like atproto (the technology behind Bluesky), which allows for portable identity and open federation.

RSS: The Backbone Nobody Talks About Anymore

Here's where things get technical—and honestly, where developers like us get a little excited.

The secret sauce powering the small web isn't flashy or new. It's RSS (and its cousin Atom). These are the protocols that let you "subscribe" to a website and receive updates without ever visiting the site directly. No algorithms. No tracking. Just a simple, standardized way to follow content you actually care about.

Setting up RSS feeds is trivial for anyone comfortable with a text editor, yet somehow the concept has become "scary" to mainstream audiences thanks to platforms that want you trapped in their ecosystems instead. If you're running your own blog (and if you're on a VPS, you absolutely should be), adding an RSS feed is about fifteen lines of XML. That's it.

Once you have feeds, you need a reader. I run Miniflux on a VPS—it's lightweight, fast, and respects your privacy. Within a few weeks of setup, I had gathered around eighty blogs in my reader. Now I wake up to a curated feed of thoughtful posts about topics I actually care about. No trending nonsense. No sponsored content. Just signal.

What Will You Actually Find?

This is where the small web surprised me.

I've stumbled onto blogs about mechanical keyboards that go deeper than any YouTube review. Writers documenting their lives in unexpected places—biking through Canadian backroads, keeping bees in suburban backyards, the small rituals that make up a human life. Sometimes it's just someone sharing photos of their cat with a few paragraphs about their day.

The content is wildly varied because it's written by actual humans with actual interests, not content strategists optimizing for search volume. I've learned things from small web blogs that I never would have encountered otherwise—because the algorithm decided I wasn't "engaged enough" with that topic.

And here's the thing: the writing is just better. When someone writes because they want to share something with you—not because they're chasing virality or building a personal brand—the prose tends to reflect that genuine motivation.

Building Your Own Corner of the Small Web

If this resonates with you, here's my suggestion: start your own blog. Not a Substack (though those are fine). Not a Medium publication. An actual website that you control.

You can do this for cheap. Grab a domain (I hear NameOcean has some solid options), spin up a basic VPS or static hosting, and pick a publishing method that matches your comfort level. Static site generators like Hugo or Eleventy are popular. For a true minimalism approach, you can write in plain HTML and CSS like it's 1997. There's something freeing about that.

Add an RSS feed. Tell people about it. Maybe submit it to one of those blog directories. See who shows up.

The beautiful thing about the small web is that it doesn't demand perfection. It demands authenticity. Nobody's auditing your bounce rate or asking for your content calendar. They're just happy you showed up and shared something real.

The Vibe of It All

There's a reason this is resonating with developers and tech-savvy folks right now. We remember what the web was like before it got colonized by surveillance capitalism. We know that the current trajectory—more centralization, more tracking, more extraction—isn't inevitable. It's a choice.

The small web is us making a different choice. It's saying: we can build online spaces that serve human connection instead of ad impressions. It might be quieter than the algorithmic feeds, but it's more sustainable. More human.

So yes, go check out Bubbles or one of those blog aggregators. Subscribe to a few feeds. Find writers who make you think, laugh, or just feel less alone. And maybe—maybe—consider adding your own voice to the mix.

The web is still what we make of it. Let's make something good.