The End of Personal Websites
And why that might be a good thing
My Medium friends can read this story over there as well.
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Personal websites used to be awesome. Your own URL. Your own layout. Your own playground. Design freedom.
I used to design websites. For me and some clients. It was a blast to play around with all the ideas I had.
Now, I haven’t touched web design in ages.
Why?
Digital Independence
For a long time, it felt like my own website was a form of digital independence.
A little spot on the internet where no platform could shadow-ban me or tweak an algorithm that decides if anyone sees my work.
But look around now…
Most creators don’t have personal websites anymore. Or if they do, it’s a short bio and the last three links.
What happened is simple.
We moved. We migrated. We outsourced our digital homes to platforms that promised reach, ease of use, discoverability, community, monetization, and speed.
For every tool we needed.
Substack, Medium, Gumroad, Patreon, ConvertKit, WordPress.com, Notion.
Personal websites are not dead, but they’re increasingly replaced by tools that come with a “website”.
And maybe that’s not a tragedy. It’s progress.
“mywebsite.com”
Back in the 2000s and early 2010s, a personal website was your identity. I loved having my own site.
It was the place I sent people. My long-term resume. My homepage. My blog. My store. Everything…
It made sense because the alternatives were… just not great for all of that.
Tumblr.
Blogger.
Old-school WordPress themes that looked… well..
Having your own site meant you controlled the space. It was your voice, your design, your rules.
But owning the space also meant owning the maintenance. Hosting. Updates. Plugins. Backups. Analytics. Page builders. SEO settings. Security patches. DNS records that made no sense at all.
Personal websites were freedom. But also chores.
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Then something changed
Platforms started doing everything better than personal websites.
Substack made publishing super simple.
Medium turned writing into a distribution machine.
Gumroad let you sell in minutes.
Social platforms became mini-homepages.
AI tools filled in the gaps.
And if you really wanted your “own” website, builder tools like Squarespace with hundreds of templates made it easier than ever before.
You didn’t need too, though.
Readers moved from homepage browsing to feed browsing.
People stopped typing URLs. Entirely. No one goes to “juliawrites.com” anymore. They go to TikTok. Or Substack. Or Medium. Or Twitter. Or anything that has a feed and an algorithm.
Why personal websites fell behind
1. Readers don’t browse homepages
They search.
They click recommendations.
They follow email links.
They tap on socials.
The homepage became… obsolete.
2. Maintenance sucks
Ask any creator with a website that’s not a hassle-free builder tool.
They’ll tell you:
Something breaks every few months.
Plugins suck.
The theme have bugs after upgrading.
The layout looks dated after two years.
Legal stuff changes
You spend a weekend debugging a cookie banner instead of writing.
Platforms solved this by removing all responsibility. Post. Publish. Done.
3. Websites don’t have built-in discovery
Your site is an island.
If your goal is reach, you go where the people are. And if you’re honest, the people are rarely typing www.anything.
4. SEO is weird
SEO now is dominated by two (main) things:
domains with huge authority
AI-generated overviews that cannibalize clicks
Personal websites struggle to rank unless backed by years of consistent publishing or a niche with very little competition. Platforms, on the other hand, already have authority.
5. Audiences want clean, simple interfaces
Readers like consistency.
They like familiarity.
They like knowing where the buttons are.
A personal site forces them to learn your design quirks. A platform gives them a predictable experience.
Maybe this is actually good?
Some freedom disappears. We surrender design control. We trust platforms. We risk platform changes.
But the upside is worth talking about:
1. We get to focus on writing, not building
The old model required creators to be:
web designers
marketing teams
SEO strategists
UX people
security managers
lawyers
We did all that just for the privilege of having… a digital home.
Now we publish. Everything else is handled.
This is pretty efficient.
2. Platforms give us built-in momentum
Publishing on a personal site is a very long game.
Publishing on Substack is simpler. And quicker.
Publishing on Medium even more.
Momentum matters.
Especially when you’re not a giant brand.
3. Readers prefer to consume content where they already spend time
People read newsletters in their inbox or Substack app.
People read Medium in the app.
People scan socials on their phones.
People skim content in feeds.
If we want to be read, we go where reading happens.
4. Personal websites still exist, just in a different form
Your Substack profile is a website.
Your Medium profile is a website.
Your Gumroad shop is a website.
Your Link-in-bio is a website.
Your Notion page with all your links is also pretty much a website.
And all your social media profiles are websites.
The idea of “my own URL” isn’t gone. But we’ve moved to other places.
5. Independence now means diversification
It’s still great to
own your domain
have your own web server
be in control
But we can also diversify:
never depend on one platform.
Republish and repurpose
be where people are
You can lose a domain too. Domains expire. Hosts shut down. Servers die. It’s rare. But it happens. Diversification is good in any way.
The safest strategy is to spread your work across multiple ecosystems.
6. Brand lives in the writing
People follow personality.
They follow:
your tone
your ideas
your perspective
your stories
your consistency
No one cares what your website header looks like.
So is the personal website dead?
Not really. It’s just… unnecessary for most writers.
It still matters for people with:
big portfolios
complex businesses
agency work
SEO-heavy content
larger teams
visual brands
custom integrations
But for most creators, a personal website is becoming like a landline phone. It exists. Some people still use it. But nobody needs it to function.
The Bottom Line
Personal websites are dying because platforms got better.
Publishing moved from handcrafted homepages to ecosystems with reach, community, monetization, and built-in attention.
And this shift frees us from maintenance, boosts distribution, and lets our writing live where readers actually are.
Pretty cool.
We can also still have a website if we want. It’s never been easier than now. It’s just not needed.
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Hi Burk,
I received your email but wasn't sure how to reply to it directly — so I'm responding here instead.
Hello everyone — I'm Nick Ridge, writing from East Asia.
I'm a retired software engineer, and for the past year I've been co-writing with AI — working on my memoir and some reflections on Eastern and Western cultures.
Happy to connect with you all here.
— Nick