For my first post on this personal website, I thought a sensible topic might be "Why have I created my own website?".

Whilst there are a few factors at play, the main one that made this website a reality was a recent experience I had with a silo (Facebook) deleting a lot of precious archive content for my band Toucan Echo.

We had around 50 high quality live stream performances that we had captured and broadcast over Facebook (only) from 2020-2023.

Replays of these streams had been available and easily accessible via our Facebook page since they were first broadcast and although I only went back and watched them occasionally myself, we did get still get comments from fans on old videos months or years after the first stream, so they were effectively evergreen, still adding value.

These videos sat on Facebook quite happily for a few years, and I'd moved on to other things and without really giving a second thought to archiving them.

Then all of a sudden, in 2025, Facebook permanently deleted every stream older than 90 days. So our whole archive was gone forever, impossible to retrieve, never to be seen again.

I said all of a sudden...it is worth noting I had been emailed by Facebook about this planned deletion a handful of times, but these warnings went to an old email that I don't often check. So I didn't see/fully comprehend the warnings.

I'm still upset with Facebook for deleting them at all (for as far as I could work out, not really any good reason) but obviously also with myself for not realising what was happening or archiving them properly.

Enter Tech Independence

This incident triggered a wider personal reflection on all the hidden 3rd party reliances and vulnerabilities I had in my digital life. It highlighted how temporary and ephemeral everything I've poured my heart and soul into creating could prove to be in even the short term if it was all hosted on 3rd party platforms I didn't control.

I looked at the situation and realised - my music masters were on Spotify, my videos were on YouTube, my friends contact details were on Facebook or Instagram or Whatsapp...

I saw clearly for the first time that my world was scattered across silos, and even though I have access to all of my data right now, I don't own it, I have handed it over, and I could lose so much of what I created...so easily and so quickly...if those platforms decide to delete my data for whatever reason (or perhaps for no reason at all).

Truth was, I was to blame for my situation - although I had been lulled into a false sense of security, I had made the choice to rely on a 3rd party platform to host content that was meaningful and important to me without having my own copies saved.

I made a bad assumption that my content would be safe for the medium term, and I'd have plenty of time to claim back my ownership to it (by downloading/archiving it) at some point. No rush.

This small taste of what it would be like to lose your digital history has revealed to be the importance to me of retaining ownership to your digital life - and inspired me to make changes.

So I decided, with a big dollop of inspiration coming from Derek Sivers' article on Tech Independence and discovering the IndieWeb movement, to start to take ownership of my own personal (as well as Toucan Echo's) web presence.

I'm taking a stand.

And I think this stand will have wider benefits beyond just following through on the principle of independence.

I think it will inspire me to grow and learn (by learning to code my own website).

To publish more of my own work, rather than just consuming others or being in endless research mode.

I'm excited by what the IndieWeb holds. And I hope I can be an inspiring example of why you should also declare your own web independence!

P.S. In the spirit of independence, I made a little flag for my new website.