Why I Have a Website

A friend recently asked me, "Why do you even have a website?"

My first thought was, "Why not?" Seriously, why wouldn't I? The web's been around way longer than either of us, and having your own little corner of it just makes sense.

If you've seen my earlier post, "Why I Chose My Own Domain: A Personal Reflection," you'll know I've already unpacked what owning ewancroft.uk means on a deeper level – from carving out my digital identity to juggling privacy and authenticity. That post was all about the why behind getting a domain and the personal philosophy that drives it.

But here's the thing – having a website isn't just a one-off decision or some abstract concept you tick and forget. It's alive. It's a daily grind of choices, frustrations, tiny wins, and evolving ideas. So, here's the deal: why I keep building it, why I keep showing up, and why it still matters – the messy, joyful, and sometimes chaotic reality behind the scenes.

Alright, since you're here (probably asking yourself the same question), let me spell it out. Why did I make a website? Why do I spend time writing posts, tweaking layouts, coding blog engines, and scribbling down my half-organised thoughts? Grab a tea – this is more layered than just "I felt like it."

A Dedicated Space, Just for Me

The short version is: I wanted a place that was mine. Not another profile pic and banner on someone else's app. Not an algorithm-shaped feed. Not a feed at all, really. A real place – where I write what I want, how I want, and don't have to bend to some opaque corporate UX trend.

My site, ewancroft.uk, is my online home. It's my digital book spine on the shelf of the internet. When I share that URL, it's not just a link – it's a reflection of me. My ideas, my code, my blog posts, my design, my links. If nothing else, it's something I built with my own hands (and occasional debugging rage). That alone makes it worthwhile.

And yes, I paid for it. Exactly £10.78 per annum – that's £8.99 + VAT. Pocket change for a corner of the internet with my name on it. If you're reading this from some $44bn bird app with a letter stamped into it, tell me again why I shouldn't just make my own place instead?

A Blog is a Digital Journal – and a Bit of Immortality

I write for myself first and foremost. I don't care about metrics. I don't have Google Analytics installed. I don't care about page views (okay, maybe a bit) or bounce rates or whatever SEO trend is in this week. If someone stumbles on my blog and enjoys it? That's a lovely bonus. But I blog for me – because thoughts deserve somewhere to live outside of my skull.

The idea that something I wrote could still be online years from now? Maybe outlasting me? That's kind of haunting, but also… beautiful? That's digital immortality, mate. Even if just for a handful of nerds who dig through web archives or stumble on an old ATProto blog mirror.

Minimalist for Sanity's Sake

Ever visited a website in 2025 that isn't trying to sell you something, track you, or bombard you with pop-ups, newsletter prompts, and auto-playing videos? No? That's exactly why I don't make mine like that.

Modern websites feel like walking into a shopping centre during a fire drill. Lights flashing, ads screaming, everything jittery and flickering. I hate it. Hate ads. Use an ad blocker religiously. Honestly, I'd uninstall my eyeballs if it meant dodging YouTube pre-rolls.

That's why my site is minimalist. No tracking, no ads, no cookie banners, no distractions. It leans into a monochromatic pastel theme – soft greens by default, with both high and low contrast options depending on your vibe. Each one has a light and dark variant, but dark mode is the standard. Content comes first, everything else gets out the way. My blog design isn't here to perform; it's here to exist – like a book, not a billboard.

My theme is monochrome by default, and I absolutely love it. It doesn't beg for attention – it just sits there and does its job. And that's enough. (Okay, maybe I'll tweak the shades of grey once in a while if I'm bored. But that's my prerogative.)

Because Social Media Became a Hellhole

I grew up on the internet. Social media raised me in the worst way. I've had accounts on just about everything: Miiverse (RIP), PopJam, Tumblr, a very brief stint on Facebook, YouTube… all the places where weird communities thrived and memes went feral.

Twitter? I jumped ship in 2022 when that space-Tesla bloke turned it into a drama machine. Moved to Mastodon with what can only be described as a reverse victory sign sent in digital form. In 2024, I found Bluesky – and that's where I've settled. It feels like what Twitter was meant to be all along, but with the added bonus of running on ATProto. It's calm. It's nerdy. It doesn't try to sell me vitamins or cryptocurrency like Nostr – that one protocol with an ostrich mascot, supposedly decentralised, but somehow managing to feel like a half-baked libertarian fever dream where every third post is either a conspiracy meme, a crypto shill, or someone yelling about censorship while hawking AI-generated wolf NFTs. It's decentralised, sure – but so is a rubbish heap if you scatter it wide enough.

You know what both Mastodon and Bluesky have in common? *No algorithms.* You get what you follow. That's it. Imagine that. No engagement farming. No ten-second TikToks with eleven-part thread summaries. No "For You" tab guessing what'll keep you doomscrolling at 03:00.

The internet used to be chaotic in a fun way. Now it's chaotic in a commodified, ad-soaked, enshittified way. So I left. And I built something of my own.

Because I Like Building (and Breaking) Stuff

My website isn't just some cookie-cutter page spat out by a no-code editor like Wix. Ugh. Look – I respect that it lowers the barrier and gets people making stuff, and that's cool in a democratise-the-web kind of way. But I also hate it. Viscerally. It's too easy. It removes the struggle – the fun bit – the bit where you cry over broken CSS and then feel like a wizard when it finally works. Where's the satisfaction in dragging a widget onto a canvas and calling it a day?

I'm the kind of guy who wants to break the layout, then fix it from scratch, probably over-engineer the whole thing, and then rewrite half of it a week later for no practical reason. I like the pain of debugging. I enjoy staring down a cryptic build error at 02:00 because I accidentally deleted a comma. That's where the learning lives. That's where the joy is.

Give me raw code and the chance to mess it all up. That challenge is the whole point. I built this thing myself – with SvelteKit, Tailwind, and some backend magic via ATProto. It's served live on Vercel (for free, for now – thanks, Vercel gods), and every little detail was put there with intent.

Sure, it's a fork of the WhiteWind-based WhiteBreeze template – but I've hacked away at the code, added bits, stripped others, and made it mine. I treat my site like a personal project – a living thing that grows and breaks and gets stitched up again.

I like having a reason to open up my editor and play with code. It keeps my brain from melting or rotting. It gives me tiny wins. It lets me write and programme – which scratches both itches at once. There's something magical about that.

If I had the hardware, and if I wasn't mildly terrified of turning my home network into Swiss cheese, I'd self-host too. Dream setup? A tiny low-power microserver (a Raspberry Pi 5 or something) with enough juice to run my site and whatever else I cook up. One day. Until then, Vercel is comfy.

The Web is Personal Again – If You Make It

I'm not here to sell a course or build a brand. I'm not optimising for engagement. I'm just some dude with a domain name, a keyboard, and a few things to say.

Websites like mine aren't uncommon – but they feel rare. Everyone's chasing virality, algorithms, newsletter subscribers, Patreon pledges. Me? I'm just making a thing. A very me thing. A thing that'll hopefully still be here in a decade, even if I'm off the grid or screaming into the void elsewhere.

So yeah. That's why I made a website. Not because I want to go viral. Not because I'm trying to get hired. Not even because people asked for it.

Because I could. Because I wanted to. And most importantly:

Why not?