On blogging in 2023

How to get started

First, here are things I’d like to have in the ideal world:

• Modern and minimalist yet functional design
• Markdown support to ensure the content is portable
• Accessible via mobile
• Photo galleries for particular posts and the blog itself
• Email subscriptions
• Affordable enough, so you don’t care about running it forever
• Effortless backups
• Connected to your personal domain

Turns out, it’s hard to find all of these things combined. Pricing is important to me at the ideological level. I can afford to pay $10+ a month, but I’m more likely to start wondering if I need to continue unless I suddenly have a very popular blog on my hands.

In fact, none of the options out there seem ideal to me – they range from mediocre to acceptable. Especially if you want anything more than a series of relatively long text-focused posts. Choose the one you like the most and stick with it as long as possible.