Decentralization should be easy. The internet, much to the chagrin of big tech, is, by its very nature. Following this idea to the extreme, then, one envisions the ideal web as one where everyone has a web page: in it one would post what people already post on their social media. Their friends and family could easily follow them via RSS feeds.

But the state of the internet in 2025 should tell you how far we’re from the dream. We’re almost 2 decades into the domination of a couple of centralized big tech platforms. Those same big tech platforms also force nonhuman slop down our throats, while the ideal web is first and foremost human. Real humans writing and publishing.

It is no surprise we ended up like this: as always we can blame it on technical barrier. It is simply easier to register on Facebook dot com and start posting AI shrimp Jesus than to -buy- get a domain, set up an always turned on PC on your home and spinning up your comfy static site just like I did. the fight never started.

Then, the second-best thing is to make it as cheaper and easier as possible to have your OWN platform. People interested then wouldn’t end up depressed when seeing the technical barrier to be surmounted: it would be a bunch of stairs instead, you just have to take the first step.

I’m optimistic in this regard: IPv6 adoption continues to grow slowly but surely, driving down to peanuts the cost of IP addresses, that mystic number computers need to access other computers on the internet. Hardware is becoming more powerful, storage cheaper: your static site is not making a dent on either your PC or the VPS you’re paying for. Hell, github and cloudflare can host it for free.

That leaves us with domain names. Domain names cost money, not a lot to be honest, 1 dollar a month for the kind you’d use for a personal site (like the one you’re seeing in the address bar up there) but money is money and it’s a barrier in the online world. That’s why everyone and their mother makes money on the web by assaulting the senses with ads. It is safe to assume that most people won’t pay for anything on the web, not even for what is kind of the best expenditure you can make on the internet: the name of your space on it.

Ok, cool intro, what is I2P

I2P is just an anonymized network, that is, an internet where both users and providers are anonymous by default. It is not the only one: hyphanet is one (akzschually, I2P spurred from hyphanet’s predecessor, freenet); TOR is the most famous one.

I mention (and wanted to write about) i2p because I love i2p’s indie web vibe. Personal sites are probably the most prolific kind of site on the network and it’s no surprise: it’s practically free to host yours on it. Actually, by doing it you’re improving the network, unlike TOR in which you can leech without giving back.

Domains (or at least, the equivalent to domains) are free to register, you don’t need a public facing IPv4 address to both be a part of the network and host your site and setting it up (what in the parlance is called an eepsite) isn’t hard, it’s probably easier than setting up the equivalent in the TOR network (what in the parlance is called an onion service).

And sites aren’t the only thing: you can host chat servers on the thing, and close the circle and truly be the owner of your little piece of the internet.

If the internet were like that, we would be on a different world

At the end of the day, I2P is a niche technology. If you host your site exclusively on it chances are you won’t become a famous blogger; as hard as it is to get your friends and family to read your blog posts, the fact they would be on what is basically an alternative internet wouldn’t make things easier.

But that’s what we should strive for: if you have friends that love to read and write, and you have the skills, offer to set them up with a static site! Host it on your VPS if you have one, on a subdomain of yours if they don’t want to spend on a domain. Or cloudflare pages et. al. Static sites don’t cost nothin’, and with each one that comes online we win a little victory.

The only thing that remains is to defeat the technical barrier your friend would have with git. Damn, nothing can be easy it seems.