Niko Heikkilä

October 9, 2022

Moving over to Fosstodon

A long-running Mastodon instance (mastodon.technology), of which I was a member from 2018 to this day, has decided to shut itself down. Hence, I migrated my account to Fosstodon, which seemed the next best thing.

It also got me thinking again about how perishable online services are. Especially those unthankfully maintained by a single person with minor support from crowdfunding sites like Patreon.

When a typical social media account shuts down, all your content and presence sink with it. But, when a federated social media site shuts down, you migrate to a new instance. So, think about it if Medium, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn has a precious and irreplaceable status in your life.

Still, the most thoughtful way to own your portion of the Internet is by self-hosting a webpage or a blog. For example, my long-form writing is on a static site backed by a distributed version control, so there is no realistic chance the content would disappear without me knowing. I fully own it and can move it out of GitHub and Netlify in a matter of minutes if I choose to.

If you cannot or won't self-host, at least take regular exports of your data to a safe place. Your intellectual capital is too valuable to be solely in the hands of Big Tech giants.

Finally, as a heads up, if you'd like to follow my short-form posts and are interested in Fediverse, check the links below. I dropped Twitter in 2019, so you won't find me there.


About Niko Heikkilä

Software Craftsman and Extreme Programmer. Currently shipping quality code at Futurice. Building proprietary software for a living and loving it as much as free and open-source software. Linux, Windows, and macOS user. Follow this blog for insights on TDD, BDD, DDD, mob programming, technical agility, lean software development, continuous integration, and delivery.

For shorter posts, check my account on Mastodon.